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Contiguous_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States

The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States of America in central North America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, which are Alaska and Hawaii (they are also the last two states to be admitted to the Union), and all other offshore insular areas, such as the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The colloquial term "Lower 48" is also used, especially in relation to Alaska. The related but distinct term continental United States includes Alaska, which is also on North America, but separated from the 48 states by British Columbia in Canada, but excludes Hawaii and all the insular areas in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The greatest distance (on a great-circle route) entirely within the contiguous U.S. is 2,802 miles (4,509 km), coast-to-coast between Florida and the State of Washington; the greatest north–south line is 1,650 miles (2,660 km). The contiguous United States occupies an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles (8,080,464.3 km2). Of this area, 2,959,064.44 square miles (7,663,941.7 km2) is actual land, composing 83.65 percent of the country's total land area, and is comparable in size to the area of Australia. Officially, 160,820.25 square miles (416,522.5 km2) of the contiguous United States is water area, composing 62.66 percent of the nation's total water area. The contiguous United States, if it were a country, would be fifth on the list of countries and dependencies by area, behind Russia, Canada, China, and Brazil. However, the total area of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, ranks third or fourth. Brazil is 431,000 square kilometers (166,000 sq mi) larger than the contiguous United States, but smaller than the entire United States including Alaska, Hawaii and overseas territories. The 2020 U.S. census population of the area was 328,571,074, comprising 99.13 percent of the nation's total population, and a density of 111.04 inhabitants/sq mi (42.872/km2), compared to 93.844/sq mi (36.233/km2) for the nation as a whole. Other terms While conterminous U.S. has the precise meaning of contiguous U.S. (both adjectives meaning "sharing a common boundary"), other terms commonly used to describe the 48 contiguous states have a greater degree of ambiguity. Continental and mainland United States Because Alaska is also a part of North America, the term continental United States also includes that state, so the term is qualified with the explicit inclusion of Alaska to resolve any ambiguity. On May 14, 1959, the United States Board on Geographic Names issued the following definitions based partially on the reference in the Alaska Omnibus Bill, which defined the continental United States as "the 49 States on the North American Continent and the District of Columbia..." The Board reaffirmed these definitions on May 13, 1999. However, even before Alaska became a state, it was properly included within the continental U.S. due to being an incorporated territory. The term mainland United States is sometimes used synonymously with continental United States, but technically refers only to those parts of states connected to the landmass of North America, thereby excluding not only Hawaii and overseas insular areas, but also islands which are part of continental states but separated from the mainland, such as the Aleutian Islands (Alaska), San Juan Islands (Washington), the Channel Islands (California), the Keys (Florida), the barrier islands (Gulf and East Coast states), and Long Island (New York). CONUS and OCONUS CONUS, a technical term used by the U.S. Department of Defense, General Services Administration, NOAA/National Weather Service, and others, has been defined both as the continental United States, and as the 48 contiguous states. The District of Columbia is not always specifically mentioned as being part of CONUS. OCONUS is derived from CONUS with O for outside added, thus referring to Outside of Continental United States. The lower 48 The term lower 48 is also used to refer to the conterminous United States. The National Geographic style guide recommends the use of contiguous or conterminous United States instead of lower 48 when the 48 states are meant, unless used in the context of Alaska. Almost all of Hawaii is south of the southernmost point of the conterminous United States in Florida. Zone of the Interior During World War II, the first four numbered Air Forces of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) were said to be assigned to the Zone of the Interior by the American military organizations of the time—the future states of Alaska and Hawaii, then each only organized incorporated territories of the Union, were respectively covered by the Eleventh Air Force and Seventh Air Force during the war. Terms used in the non-contiguous U.S. jurisdictions Residents of Alaska, Hawaii and off-shore U.S. territories have unique labels for the contiguous United States because of their own locations relative to them. Alaska The vast territory of Alaska became the 49th state of the United States on January 3, 1959. Alaska is the northwest extremity of the North American continent, separated from the U.S. West Coast by the Canadian province of British Columbia. The term Lower 48 has, for many years, been a common Alaskan equivalent for "contiguous United States"; today, many Alaskans use the term "Outside" for those states, though some may use "Outside" to refer to any location not within Alaska. Hawaii The territory of Hawaii, consisting of the entire Hawaiian Islands archipelago except for Midway Atoll, became the 50th state of the United States on August 21, 1959. It is the southernmost U.S. state, and the latest one to join the Union. Not part of any continent, Hawaii is located in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,200 miles (3,541 km) from North America and almost halfway between North America and Asia. In Hawaii and overseas American territories, for instance, the terms the Mainland or U.S. Mainland are often used to refer to the 49 states in North America. Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 1,000 miles (1,609 km) southeast of Miami, Florida. Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens and are free to move to the mainland United States. The term Stateside Puerto Rican refers to residents of any U.S. state or the District of Columbia who were born in, or can trace their family ancestry to, Puerto Rico. U.S. Virgin Islands The U.S. Virgin Islands is a U.S. territory located directly to the east of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea. The term "stateside" is used to refer to the mainland, in relation to the U.S. Virgin Islands (see Stateside Virgin Islands Americans). American Samoa American Samoa is a U.S. territory located in the South Pacific Ocean in Polynesia, south of the equator — it is 2,200 miles (3,500 km) southwest of Hawaii. In American Samoa, the contiguous United States is called the "mainland United States" or "the states"; those not from American Samoa are called palagi (outsiders). Non-contiguous areas within the contiguous United States Apart from off-shore U.S. islands, a few continental portions of the contiguous United States are accessible by road only by traveling through Canada. Point Roberts, Washington; Elm Point, Minnesota; and the Northwest Angle in Minnesota are three such places. Alburgh, Vermont, is not directly connected by land, but is accessible by road via bridges from within Vermont and from New York. By contrast, Hyder, Alaska, is physically part of contiguous Alaska and its easternmost town, but the only practical access is by road through Canada or by seaplane. List of contiguous U.S. states The 48 contiguous states are: In addition, the District of Columbia is within the contiguous United States. See also Extreme points of the United States Mainland Metropolitan France, nicknamed "l'Hexagone", an analogous concept in France Notes References External links Definition of continental Definition of contiguous Definition of coterminous and conterminous

1996_Summer_Olympics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Summer_Olympics

The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. These were the fourth Summer Olympics to be hosted by the United States, making it the first country to have three different cities host the Summer Olympics. It also marked the 100th anniversary of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, the inaugural edition of the modern Olympic Games. These were also the first Summer Olympics to be held in a different year than the Winter Olympics since the Winter Olympics commenced in 1924, as part of a new IOC practice implemented in 1994 to hold the Summer and Winter Games in alternating, even-numbered years. The 1996 Games were the first of the two consecutive Summer Olympics to be held in a predominantly English-speaking country, preceding the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. These were also the last Summer Olympics to be held in North America until 2028, when Los Angeles will host the games for the third time. 10,318 athletes from 197 National Olympic Committees competed in 26 sports, including the Olympic debuts of beach volleyball, mountain biking and softball, as well as the new disciplines of lightweight rowing, women's swimming 4 x 200 freestyle relay, women's fencing, team rhythmic gymnastics, and women's association football. A total of 24 countries made their Summer Olympic debuts in Atlanta, including 11 former Soviet republics participating for the first time as independent nations. With a total of 101 medals, the United States topped both the gold and overall medal count for the first time since 1984 (and for the first time since 1968 in a non-boycotted Summer Olympics), also winning the most gold (44) and silver (32) medals out of all the participating nations. Notable performances during the competition included those of Andre Agassi, whose gold medal in these Games would be followed up with the French Open title in 1999, making him the first men's singles tennis player to complete the Golden Slam; Donovan Bailey, who set a new world record of 9.84 for the men's 100 meters; Lilia Podkopayeva, who became the second gymnast to win an individual event gold medal after winning the all-around title in the same Olympics; and the Magnificent Seven, who dramatically won the first ever U.S. gold medal in the Women's artistic gymnastics team all-around. The Games were marred by violence on July 27, 1996, when a pipe bomb was detonated at Centennial Olympic Park (which had been built to serve as a public focal point for the festivities), killing two and injuring 111. Years later, Eric Rudolph confessed to the bombing and a series of related terrorist attacks, and was sentenced to life in prison. Nonetheless, the 1996 Olympics turned a profit, helped by record revenue from sponsorship deals and broadcast rights, and a reliance on private funding, among other factors. There were 8.3 million tickets sold for events at this Olympics, a record broken only in 2024. There was some criticism of the perceived over-commercialization of the Games, with other issues raised by European officials, such as the availability of food and transport. The event had a lasting impact on the city; Centennial Olympic Park led a revitalization of Atlanta's downtown area, and has served as a symbol of the legacy of the 1996 Games; the Olympic Village buildings have since been used as residential housing for area universities; and the Centennial Olympic Stadium has since been redeveloped twice, first as the Turner Field baseball stadium, then as the Center Parc American football stadium. Bidding process Atlanta was selected on September 18, 1990, in Tokyo, Japan, over Athens, Belgrade, Manchester, Melbourne, and Toronto at the 96th IOC Session. The city entered the competition as a dark horse, being up against stiff competition. The US media also criticized Atlanta as a second-tier city and complained of Georgia's Confederate history. However, the IOC Evaluation Commission ranked Atlanta's infrastructure and facilities the highest, while IOC members said that it could guarantee large television revenues similar to the success of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the most recent Olympics in the United States. Additionally, former US ambassador to the UN and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young touted Atlanta's civil rights history and reputation for racial harmony. Young also wanted to showcase a reformed American South. The strong economy of Atlanta and improved race relations in the South helped to impress the IOC officials. Coca-Cola, a long-standing partner of the Olympics, was also a strong advocate to bring the Games to its hometown. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) also proposed a substantial revenue-sharing with the IOC, USOC, and other NOCs. Atlanta's main rivals were Toronto, whose front-running bid that began in 1986 had chances to succeed after Canada had held a successful 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and Melbourne, Australia, who hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and after Brisbane, Australia's failed bid for the 1992 games (which were awarded to Barcelona) and prior to Sydney, Australia's successful 2000 Summer Olympics bid. This would be Toronto's fourth failed attempt since 1960 (tried in 1960, 1964, and 1976, but was defeated by Rome, Tokyo and Montreal). Greece, the home of the ancient and first modern Olympics, was considered by many observers the "natural choice" for the Centennial Games, due to its "divine right" in history. Athens bid chairman Spyros Metaxas gave repeated warnings to the IOC and demanded to give them the games to mark the centennial, saying "You don't hold a 100th birthday in someone else's home. The Centenary Games should be held in Athens." He also warned that "if we don't get the Olympics in 1996 we will never bid again to host them." However, the Athens bid was described as "arrogant and poorly prepared," being regarded as "not being up to the task of coping with the modern and risk-prone extravaganza" of the current Games. Athens faced numerous obstacles, including "political instability, potential security problems, air pollution, traffic congestion and the fact that it would have to spend about US$3 billion to improve its infrastructure of airports, roads, rail lines and other amenities." Athens would later be selected to host the 2004 Summer Olympics seven years later on September 5, 1997. Development and preparation Budget The total cost of the 1996 Summer Olympics was estimated to be around US$1.7 billion. The venues and the Games themselves were funded entirely via private investment, and the only public funding came from the U.S. government for security, and around $500 million of public money used on physical public infrastructure including streetscaping, road improvements, Centennial Olympic Park (alongside $75 million in private funding), expansion of the airport, improvements in public transportation, and redevelopment of public housing projects. $420 million worth of tickets were sold, sale of sponsorship rights accounted for $540 million, and sale of the domestic broadcast rights to NBC accounted for $456 million. In total, the Games turned a profit of $19 million. The cost for Atlanta 1996 compares with costs of $4.6 billion for Rio 2016, $40–44 billion for Beijing 2008, and $51 billion for Sochi 2014 (the most expensive Olympics in history). The average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is $5.2 billion. Unlike Atlanta 1996, Beijing and Sochi were primarily funded by their respective governments. Venues and infrastructure Events of the 1996 Games were held in a variety of areas. A number were held within the Olympic Ring, a 3 mi (4.8 km) circle from the center of Atlanta. Others were held at Stone Mountain, about 20 miles (32 km) outside of the city. To broaden ticket sales, other events, such as Association football (soccer), were staged in various cities in the Southeast. Alexander Memorial Coliseum – Boxing Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium – Baseball Centennial Olympic Stadium – Opening/Closing Ceremonies, Athletics Clayton County International Park (Jonesboro, Georgia) – Beach Volleyball Forbes Arena – Basketball Georgia Dome – Basketball (final), Gymnastics (artistic), Handball (men's final) Georgia International Horse Park (Conyers, Georgia) – Cycling (mountain), Equestrian, Modern pentathlon (riding, running) Georgia State University Sports Arena – Badminton Georgia Tech Aquatic Center – Diving, Modern pentathlon (swimming), Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Water Polo Georgia World Congress Center – Fencing, Handball, Judo, Modern pentathlon (fencing, shooting), Table Tennis, Weightlifting, Wrestling Golden Park (Columbus, Georgia) – Softball Herndon Stadium – Field hockey (final) Lake Lanier (Gainesville, Georgia) – Canoeing (sprint), Rowing Legion Field (Birmingham, Alabama) – Football Miami Orange Bowl (Miami, Florida) – Football Omni Coliseum – Volleyball (indoor final) Ocoee Whitewater Center (Polk County, Tennessee) – Canoeing (slalom) Panther Stadium – Field hockey RFK Stadium (Washington, D.C.) – Football Stone Mountain Tennis Center (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Tennis Stone Mountain Park Archery Center (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Archery Stone Mountain Park Velodrome (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Cycling (track) Sanford Stadium (Athens, Georgia) at the University of Georgia – Football (final) Stegeman Coliseum (Athens, Georgia) at the University of Georgia – Gymnastics (rhythmic), Volleyball (indoor) Wassaw Sound (Savannah, Georgia) – Sailing Wolf Creek Shooting Complex – Shooting Marketing The Olympiad's official theme, "Summon the Heroes", was written by John Williams, making it the third Olympiad at that point for which he had composed (official composer in 1984, NBC's coverage composer in 1988). The opening ceremony featured Céline Dion singing "The Power of the Dream", the theme song of the 1996 Olympics. The closing ceremony featured Gloria Estefan singing "Reach", the official theme song of the 1996 Olympics. The mascot for the Olympiad was an abstract, animated character named Izzy. In contrast to the standing tradition of mascots of national or regional significance in the city hosting the Olympiad, Izzy was an amorphous, fantasy figure. A video game featuring the Games' mascot, Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings, was also released. Atlanta's Olympic slogan "Come Celebrate Our Dream" was written by Jack Arogeti, a managing director at McCann-Erickson in Atlanta at the time. The slogan was selected from more than 5,000 submitted by the public to the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Billy Payne noted that Jack "captured the spirit and our true motivation for the Olympic games." The city of Savannah, Georgia, host of the yachting events, held its own local festivities, including a local cauldron lighting event on the first day of the Games (headlined by a performance by country musician Trisha Yearwood). In 1994, African-American artist Kevin Cole was commissioned to create the Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Mural, and the 15-story mural took two years to complete. Calendar All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4); the other, Birmingham, Alabama, uses Central Daylight Time (UTC-5) Games Opening ceremony The ceremony began with a 60-second countdown, which included footage from all of the previous Olympic Games at twenty-two seconds. There was then a flashback to the closing ceremony of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, showing the then president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, inviting the athletes to compete in Atlanta in 1996. Then, spirits ascended in the northwest corner of the stadium, each representing one of the colors in the Olympic rings. The spirits called the tribes of the world which, after mixed percussion, formed the Olympic rings while the youth of Atlanta formed the number 100. Famed film score composer John Williams wrote the official overture for the 1996 Olympics, called "Summon the Heroes"; this was his second overture for Olympic games, the first being "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" written for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Céline Dion performed David Foster's official 1996 Olympics song "The Power of the Dream", accompanied by Foster on the piano, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Centennial Choir (comprising Morehouse College Glee Club, Spelman College Glee Club and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus). Gladys Knight sang Georgia's official state song, "Georgia on My Mind". There was a showcase entitled "Welcome To The World", featuring cheerleaders, Chevrolet pick-up trucks, marching bands, and steppers, which highlighted the American youth and a typical Saturday college football game in the South, including the wave commonly produced by spectators in sporting events around the world. There was another showcase entitled "Summertime" which focused on Atlanta and the Old South, emphasizing its beauty, spirit, music, history, culture, and rebirth after the American Civil War. The ceremony also featured a memorable dance tribute to the athletes and to the goddesses of victory of the ancient Greek Olympics, using silhouette imagery. The accompanying music, "The Tradition of the Games", was composed by Basil Poledouris. Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic cauldron and later received a replacement gold medal for his boxing victory in the 1960 Summer Olympics. For the torch ceremony, more than 10,000 Olympic torches were manufactured by the American Meter Company and electroplated by Erie Plating Company. Each torch weighed about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) and was made primarily of aluminum, with a Georgia pecan wood handle and gold ornamentation. Closing ceremony Sports The 1996 Summer Olympic program featured 271 events in 26 sports. Softball, beach volleyball and mountain biking debuted on the Olympic program, together with women's football, lightweight rowing, women's swimming, women's fencing, and a team rhythmic gymnastics event. In women's gymnastics, Ukrainian Lilia Podkopayeva became the all-around Olympic champion. Podkopayeva also won a second gold medal in the floor exercise final and a silver on the beam – becoming the only female gymnast since Nadia Comăneci to win an individual event gold after winning the all-around title in the same Olympics. Kerri Strug of the United States women's gymnastics team vaulted with an injured ankle and landed on one foot, winning the first women's team gold medal for the US. Shannon Miller won the gold medal on the balance beam event, the first time an American gymnast had won an individual gold medal in non-boycotted Olympic games. The Spanish team won the first gold medal in the new competition of women's rhythmic group all-around. The team was formed by Estela Giménez, Marta Baldó, Nuria Cabanillas, Lorena Guréndez, Estíbaliz Martínez and Tania Lamarca. Amy Van Dyken won four gold medals in the Olympic swimming pool, the first American woman to win four titles in a single Olympiad. Penny Heyns, swimmer of South Africa, won the gold medals in both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke events. Michelle Smith of Ireland won three gold medals and a bronze in swimming. She remains her nation's most decorated Olympian. However, her victories were overshadowed by doping allegations even though she did not test positive in 1996. She received a four-year suspension in 1998 for tampering with a urine sample, though her medals and records were allowed to stand. In track and field, Donovan Bailey of Canada won the men's 100 m, setting a new world record of 9.84 seconds at that time. He also anchored his team's gold in the 4 × 100 m relay. Michael Johnson won gold in both the 200 m and 400 m, setting a new world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200 m. Marie-José Pérec equaled Johnson's performance, although without a world record, by winning the rare 200 m/400 m double. Carl Lewis won his 4th long jump gold medal at the age of 35. In tennis, Andre Agassi won the gold medal, which would eventually make him the first man and second singles player overall (after his eventual wife, Steffi Graf) to win the career Golden Slam, which consists of an Olympic gold medal and victories in the singles tournaments held at professional tennis' four major events (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open). There were a series of national firsts realized during the Games. Deon Hemmings became the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for Jamaica and the English-speaking West Indies. Lee Lai Shan won a gold medal in sailing, the only Olympic medal that Hong Kong ever won as a British colony (1842–1997). This meant that for the only time, the colonial flag of Hong Kong was raised to the accompaniment of the British national anthem "God Save the Queen", as Hong Kong's sovereignty was later transferred to China in 1997. The U.S. women's soccer team won the gold medal in the first-ever women's football event. For the first time, Olympic medals were won by athletes from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burundi, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mozambique, Slovakia, Tonga, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Another first in Atlanta was that this was the first Summer Olympics ever that not a single nation swept all three medals in a single event. Records Medal table These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1996 Games. * Host nation (United States) Participating National Olympic Committees A total of 197 nations, all of the then-existing and recognized National Olympic Committees, were represented at the 1996 Games, and the combined total of athletes was about 10,318. Twenty-four countries made their Olympic debut this year, including eleven of the ex-Soviet countries that competed as part of the Unified Team in 1992. Russia participated in the Summer Olympics separately from the other countries of the former Soviet Union for the first time since 1912 (when it was the Russian Empire). Russia had been a member of the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics together with 11 post-Soviet states. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia competed as Yugoslavia. After missing the 1992 Summer Games Afghanistan and Cambodia returned to send delegations to Atlanta. The 14 countries making their Olympic debut were: Azerbaijan, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Dominica, Guinea-Bissau, Macedonia, Nauru, Palestinian Authority, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The ten countries making their Summer Olympic debut (after competing at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer) were: Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The Czech Republic and Slovakia attended the games as independent nations for the first time since the breakup of Czechoslovakia, while the rest of the nations that made their Summer Olympic debut were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Number of athletes by National Olympic Committee 10,339 athletes from 197 NOCs participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics. Centennial Olympic Park bombing The 1996 Olympics were marred by the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which occurred on July 27. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the pipe bomb and immediately notified law enforcement, helping to evacuate as many people as possible from the area before it exploded. Although Jewell's quick actions are credited for saving many lives, the bombing killed spectator Alice Hawthorne, wounded 111 others, and caused the death of Melih Uzunyol by a heart attack. Jewell was later considered a suspect in the bombing but was never charged, and he was cleared in October 1996. Fugitive Eric Rudolph was arrested in May 2003 and charged with the Olympic Park bombing as well as the bombings of two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub. At his trial two years later, he confessed to all charges and afterwards released a statement, saying: "the purpose of the attack on July 27th was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand." He received four life sentences without parole, to be served at USP Florence ADMAX near Florence, Colorado. Legacy Preparations for the Olympics lasted more than seven years and had an economic impact of at least US$5.14 billion. Over two million visitors came to Atlanta, and approximately 3.5 billion people around the world watched at least some of the events on television. Although marred by the tragedy of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the Games were a financial success, due in part to TV rights contracts and sponsorships at record levels. Atlanta also set a new record for the most tickets sold at a single Games (8.3 million), and held it until 2024. Beyond international recognition, the Games resulted in many modern infrastructure improvements. The mid-rise dormitories built for the Olympic Village, which became the first residential housing for Georgia State University (Georgia State Village), are now used by the Georgia Institute of Technology (North Avenue Apartments). As designed, the Centennial Olympic Stadium was converted into Turner Field after the Paralympics, which became the home of the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team from 1997 to 2016. The Braves' former home, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, was demolished in 1997 and the site became a parking lot for Turner Field; the Omni Coliseum was demolished the same year to make way for State Farm Arena. The city's permanent memorial to the 1996 Olympics is Centennial Olympic Park, which was built as a focal point for the Games. The park initiated a revitalization of the surrounding area and now serves as the hub for Atlanta's tourism district. In November 2016, a commemorative plaque was unveiled for Centennial Olympic Park to honor the 20th anniversary of the Games. Following the Braves' departure from Turner Field to Truist Park in 2017, Georgia State University acquired the former Olympic Stadium and surrounding parking lots. It reconfigured the stadium for a second time into Center Parc Stadium for its college football team. The 1996 Olympic cauldron was originally built and placed at the intersection of Fulton Street and Capitol Avenue, near the Centennial Olympic Stadium. After the Paralympics, in order to make room for the stadium conversion, the Olympic cauldron was moved (except its ramp, which was demolished) to the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Fulton Street in 1997, where it has stayed since. Since Georgia State University's acquisition of the former Olympic Stadium and surrounding lots, there has been proposals and growing calls to move the Olympic cauldron to Centennial Olympic Park. The Olympic cauldron was re-lit in February 2020 for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. The 1996 Olympics are the most recent edition of the Summer Olympics to be held in the United States. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, 32 years after the Games were held in Atlanta. Sponsors The 1996 Summer Olympics relied heavily on commercial sponsorship. The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company was the exclusive provider of soft drinks at Olympics venues, and built an attraction known as Coca-Cola Olympic City for the Games. As part of a sponsorship agreement with Columbia TriStar Television, the syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune both produced episodes with Olympics tie-ins (including branded memorabilia and contests) for broadcast between April and July 1996. These included a Jeopardy! international tournament, and three weeks of Wheel of Fortune episodes filmed on-location at Atlanta's Fox Theatre. The Games were affected by several instances of ambush marketing—in which companies attempt to use the Games as a means to promote their brand, in competition with the exclusive, category-based sponsorship rights issued by the Atlanta organizing committee and the IOC (which grants the rights to use Olympics-related terms and emblems in marketing). The Atlanta organizing committee threatened legal actions against advertisers whose marketing implied an official association with the Games. Several non-sponsors set up marketing activities in areas near venues, such as Samsung (competing with Motorola), which ambushed the Games with its "96 Expo". The city of Atlanta had also licensed street vendors to sell products from competitors to Olympic sponsors. The most controversial ambush campaign was undertaken by Nike, Inc., which had begun an advertising campaign with aggressive slogans that mocked the Games' values, such as "Faster, Higher, Stronger, Badder", "If you're not here to win, you're a tourist", and "You don't win silver, you lose gold." The slogans were featured on magazine ads and billboards it purchased in Atlanta. Nike also opened a pop-up store known as the Nike Center near the Athletes' Village, which distributed Nike-branded flags to visitors (presumably to be used at events). IOC marketing director Michael Payne expressed concern for the campaign, believing that athletes could perceive them as being an insult to their accomplishments. Payne and the United States Olympic Committee's marketing director, John Krimsky, met with Howard Slusher, a subordinate of Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The meeting quickly turned aggressive, with Payne warning that the IOC could pull accreditation for Nike employees and ban the display of its logos on equipment; he also threatened to organize a press conference where silver medallists from the Games, as well as prominent Nike-sponsored athlete Michael Johnson (who attracted attention during the Games for wearing custom, gold-colored Nike shoes), would denounce the company. Faced with these threats, Nike agreed to retract most of its negative advertising and public relations stunts. Reception At the closing ceremony, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said in his closing speech, "Well done, Atlanta" and simply called the Games "most exceptional." This broke precedent for Samaranch, who had traditionally labeled each Games "the best Olympics ever" at each closing ceremony, a practice he resumed at the subsequent Winter Games in Nagano in 1998. A report prepared after the Games by European Olympic officials was critical of Atlanta's performance in several key areas, including the level of crowding in the Olympic Village, the quality of available food, the accessibility and convenience of transportation, and the Games' general atmosphere of commercialism. IOC vice-president Dick Pound responded to criticism of the commercialization of these Games, stating that they still adhered to a historic policy barring the display of advertising within venues, and that "you have to look to the private sector for at least a portion of the funding, and unless you're looking for handouts, you're dealing with people who are investing business assets, and they have to get a return." In 1997, Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics. Along with addressing the shortcomings of its 1996 bid, it was lauded for its efforts to promote the traditional values of the Olympic Games, which some IOC observers felt had been lost due to the over-commercialization of the 1996 Games. However, the 2004 Games heavily relied on public funding and eventually failed to make a profit, which some have claimed contributed to the financial crisis in Greece. The financial struggles faced by many later Games, such as the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, have caused some to offer more positive reappraisals of the management of the 1996 Summer Games. Former JPMorgan Chase president (and torchbearer) Kabir Sehgal noted that in contrast to many later Olympics, those of 1996 were financially viable, had a positive economic impact on the city, and most of the facilities constructed continued to be used after the Games. Sehgal contrasted the 1996 Games' "grassroots" effort backed almost entirely by private funding, with the only significant public spending coming from infrastructure associated with the Games, to modern "top-down" bids, instigated by local governments and reliant on taxpayer funding, making them unpopular among citizens who may not necessarily be interested. The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will rely almost entirely on private funding, with the city of Los Angeles and state of California each intending to provide up to $250 million in funding in the event of shortfalls, and the U.S. federal government providing funding solely for security. See also 1996 Summer Paralympics Olympic Games held in the United States 1904 Summer Olympics – St. Louis 1932 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles 1932 Winter Olympics – Lake Placid 1960 Winter Olympics – Squaw Valley 1980 Winter Olympics – Lake Placid 1984 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles 1996 Summer Olympics – Atlanta 2002 Winter Olympics – Salt Lake City 2028 Summer Olympics – Los Angeles 2034 Winter Olympics – Salt Lake City List of IOC country codes Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games – 1996 Atlanta References External links "Atlanta 1996". Olympics.com. International Olympic Committee. Official Report of the Centennial Olympic Games, Volume I: Planning and Organizing Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles Official Report of the Centennial Olympic Games, Volume II: The Centennial Olympic Games Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles Official Report of the Centennial Olympic Games, Volume III: The Competition Results Digital Archive from the LA84 Foundation of Los Angeles 1996 program from GPB about Atlanta and the 1996 Olympic Games, "Fences & Neighborhoods," 1996-06-07, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting Atlanta Summer Games 25th anniversary Coverage from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Collection: Olympic/Paralympic Photograph Collection | Georgia Tech Archives Finding Aids". finding-aids.library.gatech.edu. Archived from the original on May 20, 2024.

Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall

The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall, pronounced [ˈmaʊ̯ɐˌfal] ) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. It was one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterward. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit in early December, and German reunification took place in October the following year. Background Opening of the Iron Curtain The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer an East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. After the picnic, which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test the reaction of the USSR and Mikhail Gorbachev to an opening of the border, tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans set off for Hungary. Erich Honecker dictated to the Daily Mirror for the Pan-European Picnic: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West." The leadership of the GDR in East Berlin did not dare to completely block the borders of their own country and the USSR did not respond at all. Thus the bracket of the Eastern Bloc was broken. Following the summer of 1989, by early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia or via the West German embassy in Prague. On 30 September, following negotiations with East Germany and the Soviet Union, the West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher went to the Prague embassy to personally inform the thousands of refugees that they were allowed to leave for West Germany. His speech from the embassy's balcony, which included the line, "Wir sind zu Ihnen gekommen, um Ihnen mitzuteilen, dass heute Ihre Ausreise..." ("We came to you, to let you know that today, your departure...") was met with loud cheers and jubilations. The next day, the first of the embassy refugees left Prague for Bavaria. The emigration was initially tolerated because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However, this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. In addition, East Germany was struggling to meet loan payments on foreign borrowings; Egon Krenz sent Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski to unsuccessfully ask West Germany for a short-term loan to make interest payments.: 344 Protection of the wall The Berlin Wall was made up of two walls instead of one. Both walls were 4 metres tall, had a length of 155 kilometres and were separated by a mine corridor called the 'death strip.' It was heavily guarded and included 302 watchtowers; its guards had authorisation to shoot anyone who attempted to escape to West Berlin. Political changes in East Germany On 18 October 1989, longtime Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) leader Erich Honecker stepped down in favor of Krenz. Honecker had been seriously ill, and those looking to replace him were initially willing to wait for a "biological solution", but by October were convinced that the political and economic situation was too grave.: 339  Honecker approved the choice, naming Krenz in his resignation speech, and the Volkskammer duly elected him. Although Krenz promised reforms in his first public speech, he was considered by the East German public to be following his predecessor's policies, and public protests demanding his resignation continued.: 347  Despite promises of reform, public opposition to the regime continued to grow. On 1 November, Krenz authorized the reopening of the border with Czechoslovakia, which had been sealed to prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Germany. On 4 November, the Alexanderplatz demonstration took place. On 6 November, the Interior Ministry published a draft of new travel regulations, which made cosmetic changes to Honecker-era rules, leaving the approval process opaque and maintaining uncertainty regarding access to foreign currency. The draft enraged ordinary citizens, and was denounced as "complete trash" by West Berlin Mayor Walter Momper. Hundreds of refugees crowded onto the steps of the West German embassy in Prague, enraging the Czechoslovaks, who threatened to seal off the East German-Czechoslovak border. On 7 November, Krenz approved the resignation of Prime Minister Willi Stoph and two-thirds of the Politburo; however, Krenz was unanimously re-elected as General Secretary by the Central Committee.: 341 New East German immigration policy On 19 October, Krenz asked Gerhard Lauter to draft a new travel policy. Lauter was a former People's Police officer. After rising rapidly through the ranks he had recently been promoted to a position with the Interior Ministry ("Home Office" / "Department of the Interior") as head of the department responsible for issuing passports and the registration of citizens. On 8 November, the East German Politburo enacted a portion of the draft travel regulations addressing permanent emigration immediately. Initially, the Politburo planned to create a special border crossing near Schirnding specifically for this emigration. However, Interior Ministry officials and Stasi bureaucrats charged with drafting the new text concluded the proposal was not feasible, and instead crafted new text relating to both emigration and temporary travel. The revised text stipulated East German citizens could apply for permission to travel abroad, without having to meet the previous requirements for those trips. To ease the difficulties, the Krenz-led Politburo decided on 9 November refugees could exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin. Later the same day, the ministerial administration modified the proposal to include private, round-trip, travel. The new regulations would take effect the next day. VVS b2-937/89 Events Misinformed public announcements The announcement of the regulations which brought down the Wall took place at an hour-long press conference led by Günter Schabowski, the party leader in East Berlin and the top government spokesman, beginning at 18:00 CET on 9 November and broadcast live on East German television and radio. Schabowski was joined by Minister of Foreign Trade Gerhard Beil and Central Committee members Helga Labs and Manfred Banaschak.: 352  Schabowski had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated. Shortly before the press conference, he was handed a note from Krenz announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. The text stipulated that East German citizens could apply for permission to travel abroad without having to meet the previous requirements for those trips, and also allowed for permanent emigration between all border crossings—including those between East and West Berlin. At 18:53, near the end of the press conference, ANSA's Riccardo Ehrman asked if the draft travel law of 6 November was a mistake. Schabowski gave a confusing answer that asserted it was necessary because West Germany had exhausted its capacity to accept fleeing East Germans, then remembered the note he had been given and added that a new regulation had been drafted to allow permanent emigration at any border crossing. This caused a stir in the room; amid several questions at once, Schabowski expressed surprise that the reporters had not yet seen this regulation, and started reading from the note. After this, a reporter, either Ehrman or Bild-Zeitung reporter Peter Brinkmann, both of whom were sitting in the front row at the press conference, asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski replied, "As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay" (German: Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis ... ist das sofort ... unverzüglich).: 352  This was an apparent assumption based on the note's opening paragraph; as Beil attempted to interject that it was up to the Council of Ministers to decide when it took effect, Schabowski proceeded to read this clause, which stated it was in effect until a law on the matter was passed by the Volkskammer. Crucially, a journalist then asked if the regulation also applied to the crossings to West Berlin. Schabowski shrugged and read item 3 of the note, which confirmed that it did. After this exchange, Daniel Johnson of The Daily Telegraph asked what this law meant for the Berlin Wall. Schabowski sat frozen before giving a rambling statement about the Wall being tied to the larger disarmament question. He then ended the press conference promptly at 19:00 as journalists hurried from the room. After the press conference, Schabowski sat for an interview with NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in which he repeated that East Germans would be able to emigrate through the border and the regulations would go into effect immediately. The news spread The news began spreading immediately: the West German Deutsche Presse-Agentur issued a bulletin at 19:04 which reported that East German citizens would be able to cross the inner German border "immediately". Excerpts from Schabowski's press conference were broadcast on West Germany's two main news programs that night—at 19:17 on ZDF's heute, which came on the air as the press conference was ending, and as the lead story at 20:00 on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s, were far more widely viewed than the East German channels, and had become accepted by the East German authorities, this is how most of the population heard the news. Later that night, on ARD's Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide.": 353  In 2009, Ehrman claimed that a member of the Central Committee had called him and urged him to ask about the travel law during the press conference, but Schabowski called that absurd. Ehrman later recanted this statement in a 2014 interview with an Austrian journalist, admitting that the caller was Günter Pötschke, head of the East German news agency ADN, and he only asked if Ehrman would attend the press conference. Peace prayers at Nikolai Church Despite the policy of state atheism in East Germany, Christian pastor Christian Führer regularly met with his congregation at St. Nicholas Church for prayer since 1982. Over the next seven years the church's congregation grew, despite authorities' barricading the adjacent streets, and peaceful candlelit marches took place following its services. The secret police issued death threats and even attacked some of the marchers, but the crowds still continued to gather. On 9 October 1989, the police and army units were given permission to use force against those assembled, but this did not deter the church service and march from taking place, which gathered 70,000 people and in which not a single shot was fired. Crowding of the border After hearing the 9 November broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can".: 353  It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Mary Elise Sarotte in a 2009 Washington Post story characterized the series of events leading to the fall of the Wall as an accident, saying "One of the most momentous events of the past century was, in fact, an accident, a semicomical and bureaucratic mistake that owes as much to the Western media as to the tides of history." Border openings Finally, at 22:45 (alternatively given as 23:30) on 9 November, Harald Jäger, commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing, yielded, allowing guards to open the checkpoints and letting people through with little or no identity-checking. As the Ossis swarmed through, they were greeted by Wessis waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall and were soon joined by East German youngsters. The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down. Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier. This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing. "Wallpeckers" demolition Removal of the Wall began on the evening of 9 November 1989 and continued over the following days and weeks, with people nicknamed Mauerspechte (wallpeckers) using various tools to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts in the process, and creating several unofficial border crossings. In the season holidays this became a sort of international action. People from all over the western world went to West Berlin and local youth provided a range of appropriate demolition tools. Television coverage of citizens demolishing sections of the Wall on 9 November was soon followed by the East German regime announcing ten new border crossings, including the historically significant locations of Potsdamer Platz, Glienicker Brücke, and Bernauer Straße. Crowds gathered on both sides of the historic crossings waiting for hours to cheer the bulldozers that tore down portions of the Wall to reconnect the divided roads. While the Wall officially remained guarded at a decreasing intensity, new border crossings continued for some time. Initially the East German Border Troops attempted repairing the damage done by the "wallpeckers"; gradually these attempts ceased, and guards became laxer, tolerating the increasing demolitions and "unauthorized" border crossing through the holes. Prime ministers meet The Brandenburg Gate in the Berlin Wall was opened on 22 December 1989; on that date, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl walked through the gate and was greeted by East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow. West Germans and West Berliners were allowed visa-free travel starting 23 December. Until then, they could only visit East Germany and East Berlin under restrictive conditions that involved application for a visa several days or weeks in advance and obligatory exchange of at least 25 DM per day of their planned stay, all of which hindered spontaneous visits. Thus, in the weeks between 9 November and 23 December, East Germans could actually travel more freely than Westerners. Official demolition On 13 June 1990, the East German Border Troops officially began dismantling the Wall, beginning in Bernauer Straße and around the Mitte district. From there, demolition continued through Prenzlauer Berg/Gesundbrunnen, Heiligensee and throughout the city of Berlin until December 1990. According to estimates by the border troops, a total of around 1.7 million tonnes of building rubble was produced by the demolition. Unofficially, the demolition of the Bornholmer Straße crossing began because of construction work on the railway. This involved a total of 300 GDR border guards and—after 3 October 1990—600 Pioneers of the Bundeswehr. These were equipped with 175 trucks, 65 cranes, 55 excavators and 13 bulldozers. Virtually every road that was severed by the Berlin Wall, every road that once linked from West Berlin to East Berlin, was reconstructed and reopened by 1 August 1990. In Berlin alone, 184 km (114 mi) of wall, 154 km (96 mi) border fence, 144 km (89 mi) signal systems and 87 km (54 mi) barrier ditches were removed. What remained were six sections that were to be preserved as a memorial. Various military units dismantled the Berlin/Brandenburg border wall, completing the job in November 1991. Painted wall segments with artistically valuable motifs were put up for auction in 1990 in Berlin and Monte Carlo. On 1 July 1990, the day East Germany adopted the West German currency, all de jure border controls ceased, although the inter-German border had become meaningless for some time before that. The demolition of the Wall was completed in 1994. The fall of the Wall marked the first critical step towards German reunification, which formally concluded a mere 339 days later on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of East Germany and the official reunification of the German state along the democratic lines of the West German Basic Law. International opposition French President François Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher both opposed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the eventual reunification of Germany, fearing potential German designs on its neighbours using its increased strength. In September 1989, Margaret Thatcher privately confided to Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it. We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security, Thatcher told Gorbachev. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, François Mitterrand warned Thatcher that a unified Germany could make more ground than Adolf Hitler ever had and that Europe would have to bear the consequences. Legacy Celebrations and anniversaries On 21 November 1989, Crosby, Stills & Nash performed the song "Chippin' Away" from Graham Nash's 1986 solo album Innocent Eyes in front of the Brandenburg Gate. On 25 December 1989, Leonard Bernstein gave a concert in Berlin celebrating the end of the Wall, including Beethoven's 9th symphony (Ode to Joy) with the word "Joy" (Freude) changed to "Freedom" (Freiheit) in the lyrics sung. The poet Schiller may have originally written "Freedom" and changed it to "Joy" out of fear. The orchestra and choir were drawn from both East and West Germany, as well as the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. On New Year's Eve 1989, David Hasselhoff performed his song "Looking for Freedom" while standing atop the partly demolished Wall in front of 200 000 people. Roger Waters performed the Pink Floyd album The Wall just north of Potsdamer Platz on 21 July 1990, with guests including Scorpions, Bryan Adams, Sinéad O'Connor, Cyndi Lauper, Thomas Dolby, Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Van Morrison. Over the years, there has been a repeated controversial debate as to whether 9 November would make a suitable German national holiday, often initiated by former members of political opposition in East Germany, such as Werner Schulz. Besides being the emotional apogee of East Germany's peaceful revolution, 9 November is also the date of the 1918 abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and declaration of the Weimar Republic, the first German republic. However, 9 November is also the anniversary of the execution of Robert Blum following the 1848 Vienna revolts, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and the infamous Kristallnacht pogroms of the Nazis in 1938. Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel criticised the first euphoria, noting that "they forgot that 9 November has already entered into history—51 years earlier it marked the Kristallnacht." As reunification was not official and complete until 3 October (1990), that day was finally chosen as German Unity Day. 10th anniversary celebrations On 9 November 1999, the 10th anniversary was observed with a concert and fireworks at the vid Brandenburg Gate. Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich played music by Johann Sebastian Bach, while German rock band Scorpions performed their 1990 song Wind of Change. Wreaths were placed for victims shot down when they attempted to escape to the west, and politicians delivered speeches. 20th anniversary celebrations On 9 November 2009, Berlin celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a "Festival of Freedom" with dignitaries from around the world in attendance for an evening celebration around the Brandenburg Gate. A high point was when over 1,000 colourfully designed foam domino tiles, each over 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, that were stacked along the former route of the Wall in the city center were toppled in stages, converging in front of the Brandenburg Gate. A Berlin Twitter Wall was set up to allow Twitter users to post messages commemorating the 20th anniversary. The Chinese government quickly shut down access to the Twitter Wall after internet users in China began using it to protest the Great Firewall. In the United States, the German Embassy coordinated a public diplomacy campaign with the motto "Freedom Without Walls", to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The campaign was focused on promoting awareness of the fall of the Berlin Wall among current college students. Students at over 30 universities participated in "Freedom Without Walls" events in late 2009. First place winner of the Freedom Without Walls Speaking Contest Robert Cannon received a free trip to Berlin for 2010. An international project called Mauerreise (Journey of the Wall) took place in various countries. Twenty symbolic Wall bricks were sent from Berlin starting in May 2009, with the destinations being Korea, Cyprus, Yemen, and other places where everyday life is characterised by division and border experience. In these places, the bricks would become a blank canvas for artists, intellectuals and young people to tackle the "Wall" phenomenon. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 3D online virtual world Twinity reconstructed a true-to-scale section of the Wall in virtual Berlin. The MTV Europe Music Awards, on 5 November, had U2 and Tokio Hotel perform songs dedicated to and about the Berlin Wall. U2 performed at the Brandenburg Gate, and Tokio Hotel performed "World Behind My Wall". Palestinians in the town of Kalandia, West Bank pulled down parts of the Israeli West Bank barrier, in a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The International Spy Museum in Washington D.C., hosted a Trabant car rally where 20 Trabants gathered in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Rides were raffled every half-hour and a Trabant crashed through a Berlin Wall mock up. The Trabant was the East German people's car that many used to leave DDR after the collapse. The Allied Museum in the Dahlem district of Berlin hosted a number of events to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The museum held a Special Exhibition entitled "Wall Patrol – The Western Powers and the Berlin Wall 1961–1990" which focused on the daily patrols deployed by the Western powers to observe the situation along the Berlin Wall and the fortifications on the GDR border. A sheet of "Americans in Berlin" Commemorative Cinderella stamps designed by T.H.E. Hill was presented to the Museum by David Guerra, Berlin veteran and webmaster of the site www.berlinbrigade.com. 30th anniversary celebrations Berlin planned a week-long arts festival from 4 to 10 November 2019 and a citywide music festival on 9 November to celebrate the 30th anniversary. On 4 November, outdoor exhibits opened at Alexanderplatz, the Brandenburg Gate, the East Side Gallery, Gethsemane Church, Kurfürstendamm, Schlossplatz, and the former Stasi headquarters in Lichtenberg. Polling A small minority still support the wall or even support rebuilding the wall back up. In 2008 a poll found that 11% of participants from the former West Berlin and 12% form the former East Berlin said it would be better if the wall was still in place. A November 2009 poll found that 12% of Germans said the wall should be rebuilt. The poll also found that in the former West German states support was at 12% and in the former East German states it was 13%. A September 2009 poll found 15% of Germans supported a wall, while in the west it was 16% and in the east it was at 10%. A 2010 poll from Emnid for Bild, found that 24% of West germans and 23% of East Germans wished for the wall still being in place. A 2019 poll from Berliner Zeitung on the 30th anniversary, found that 8% of Berliners supported the idea if the wall was still standing, The overwhelming majority of Berliners at 87% however supported the fall of the wall. The poll also found that 28% of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and 16% of Free Democratic Party (FDP) supporters supported bringing back the wall. A 2019 Yougov poll found that 13% of Germans wanted the wall back, in the West support was at 14% and in the East it was 13%. A 2019 poll from Forsa found 35% of Berliners thought the construction of the Wall was not so wrong with supporters of the left party Die Linke at 74%. References Bibliography Sarotte, Mary Elise (7 October 2014). The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-05690-3. External links Original document: "Schabowskis Zettel": Zeitweilige Übergangsregelung des DDR-Ministerrates für Reisen und ständige Ausreise aus der DDR, 9. November 1989

The_Beatles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionized many aspects of the music industry and were often publicized as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements. Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the Beatles evolved from Lennon's previous group, the Quarrymen, and built their reputation by playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, over three years from 1960, initially with Stuart Sutcliffe playing bass. The core trio of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, together since 1958, went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before inviting Starr to join them in 1962. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings, greatly expanding their domestic success after they signed with EMI Records and achieved their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the intense fan frenzy dubbed "Beatlemania", the band acquired the nickname "the Fab Four". Epstein, Martin or other members of the band's entourage were sometimes informally referred to as a "fifth Beatle". By early 1964, the Beatles were international stars and had achieved unprecedented levels of critical and commercial success. They became a leading force in Britain's cultural resurgence, ushering in the British Invasion of the United States pop market. They soon made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night (1964). A growing desire to refine their studio efforts, coupled with the challenging nature of their concert tours, led to the band's retirement from live performances in 1966. During this time, they produced albums of greater sophistication, including Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). They enjoyed further commercial success with The Beatles (also known as "the White Album", 1968) and Abbey Road (1969). The success of these records heralded the album era, as albums became the dominant form of record use over singles. These records also increased public interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern spirituality and furthered advancements in electronic music, album art and music videos. In 1968, they founded Apple Corps, a multi-armed multimedia corporation that continues to oversee projects related to the band's legacy. After the group's break-up in 1970, all principal former members enjoyed success as solo artists, and some partial reunions occurred. Lennon was murdered in 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr remain musically active. The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time, with estimated sales of 600 million units worldwide. They are the most successful act in the history of the US Billboard charts, holding the record for most number-one albums on the UK Albums Chart (15), most number-one hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart (20), and most singles sold in the UK (21.9 million). The band received many accolades, including seven Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the 1970 documentary film Let It Be) and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, 1988, and each principal member was individually inducted between 1994 and 2015. In 2004 and 2011, the group topped Rolling Stone's lists of the greatest artists in history. Time magazine named them among the 20th century's 100 most important people. History 1956–1963: Formation The Quarrymen and name changes In November 1956, sixteen-year-old John Lennon formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. They were called the Quarrymen, a reference to their school song "Quarry men old before our birth." Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney met Lennon on 6 July 1957, and joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison, then aged fifteen, to watch the band. Harrison auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young. After a month's persistence, during a second meeting (arranged by McCartney), Harrison performed the lead guitar part of the instrumental song "Raunchy" on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, and they enlisted him as lead guitarist. By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began his studies at the Liverpool College of Art. The three guitarists, billing themselves as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They also performed as the Rainbows. Paul McCartney later told New Musical Express that they called themselves that "because we all had different coloured shirts and we couldn't afford any others!" Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe, who had just sold one of his paintings and was persuaded to purchase a bass guitar with the proceeds, joined in January 1960. He suggested changing the band's name to Beatals, as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. They used this name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they had refashioned themselves as the Silver Beatles, and by the middle of August simply the Beatles. Early residencies and UK popularity Allan Williams, the Beatles' unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg. They auditioned and hired drummer Pete Best in mid-August 1960. The band, now a five-piece, departed Liverpool for Hamburg four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3+1⁄2-month residency. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes: "They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 17 August, the time when the red-light area comes to life ... flashing neon lights screamed out the various entertainment on offer, while scantily clad women sat unabashed in shop windows waiting for business opportunities." Koschmider had converted a couple of strip clubs in the district into music venues, and he initially placed the Beatles at the Indra Club. After closing Indra due to noise complaints, he moved them to the Kaiserkeller in October. When he learned they had been performing at the rival Top Ten Club in breach of their contract, he gave them one month's termination notice, and reported the underage Harrison, who had obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age. The authorities arranged for Harrison's deportation in late November. One week later, Koschmider had McCartney and Best arrested for arson after they set fire to a condom in a concrete corridor; the authorities deported them. Lennon returned to Liverpool in early December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg until late February with his German fiancée Astrid Kirchherr, who took the first semi-professional photos of the Beatles. During the next two years, the Beatles were resident for periods in Hamburg, where they used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances. In 1961, during their second Hamburg engagement, Kirchherr cut Sutcliffe's hair in the "exi" (existentialist) style, later adopted by the other Beatles. Later on, Sutcliffe decided to leave the band early that year and resume his art studies in Germany. McCartney took over bass. Producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece group until June 1962, and he used them as Tony Sheridan's backing band on a series of recordings for Polydor Records. As part of the sessions, the Beatles were signed to Polydor for one year. Credited to "Tony Sheridan & the Beat Brothers", the single "My Bonnie", recorded in June 1961 and released four months later, reached number 32 on the Musikmarkt chart. After the Beatles completed their second Hamburg residency, they enjoyed increasing popularity in Liverpool with the growing Merseybeat movement. However, they were growing tired of the monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night. In November 1961, during one of the group's frequent performances at the Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record-store owner and music columnist. He later recalled: "I immediately liked what I heard. They were fresh, and they were honest, and they had what I thought was a sort of presence ... [a] star quality." First EMI recordings Epstein courted the band over the next couple of months, and they appointed him as their manager in January 1962. Throughout early and mid-1962, Epstein sought to free the Beatles from their contractual obligations to Bert Kaempfert Productions. He eventually negotiated a one-month early release in exchange for one last recording session in Hamburg. On their return to Germany in April, a distraught Kirchherr met them at the airport with news of Sutcliffe's death the previous day from a brain haemorrhage. Epstein began negotiations with record labels for a recording contract. To secure a UK record contract, Epstein negotiated an early end to the band's contract with Polydor, in exchange for more recordings backing Tony Sheridan. After a New Year's Day audition, Decca Records rejected the band, saying, "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein." However, three months later, producer George Martin signed the Beatles to EMI's Parlophone label. Martin's first recording session with the Beatles took place at EMI Recording Studios (later Abbey Road Studios) in London on 6 June 1962. He immediately complained to Epstein about Best's drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his place. Already contemplating Best's dismissal, the Beatles replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them. A 4 September session at EMI yielded a recording of "Love Me Do" featuring Starr on drums, but a dissatisfied Martin hired drummer Andy White for the band's third session a week later, which produced recordings of "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "P.S. I Love You". Martin initially selected the Starr version of "Love Me Do" for the band's first single, though subsequent re-pressings featured the White version, with Starr on tambourine. Released in early October, "Love Me Do" peaked at number seventeen on the Record Retailer chart. Their television debut came later that month with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places. After Martin suggested rerecording "Please Please Me" at a faster tempo, a studio session in late November yielded that recording, of which Martin accurately predicted, "You've just made your first No. 1." In December 1962, the Beatles concluded their fifth and final Hamburg residency. By 1963, they had agreed that all four band members would contribute vocals to their albums – including Starr, despite his restricted vocal range, to validate his standing in the group. Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership, and as the band's success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as a lead vocalist. Epstein, to maximise the Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged them to adopt a professional approach to performing. Lennon recalled him saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change – stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking ...." 1963–1966: Beatlemania and touring years Please Please Me and With the Beatles On 11 February 1963, the Beatles recorded ten songs during a single studio session for their debut LP, Please Please Me. It was supplemented by the four tracks already released on their first two singles. Martin considered recording the LP live at The Cavern Club, but after deciding that the building's acoustics were inadequate, he elected to simulate a "live" album with minimal production in "a single marathon session at Abbey Road". After the moderate success of "Love Me Do", the single "Please Please Me" was released in January 1963, two months ahead of the album. It reached number one on every UK chart except Record Retailer, where it peaked at number two. Recalling how the Beatles "rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day", AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins." Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were "just writing songs à la Everly Brothers, à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that – to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant." Released in March 1963, Please Please Me was the first of eleven consecutive Beatles albums released in the United Kingdom to reach number one. The band's third single, "From Me to You", came out in April and began an almost unbroken string of seventeen British number-one singles, including all but one of the eighteen they released over the next six years. Issued in August, their fourth single, "She Loves You", achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks. It became their first single to sell a million copies, and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978. The success brought increased media exposure, to which the Beatles responded with an irreverent and comical attitude that defied the expectations of pop musicians at the time, inspiring even more interest. The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February, the Beatles' first nationwide, preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold. On 13 October, the Beatles starred on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, the UK's top variety show. Their performance was televised live and watched by 15 million viewers. One national paper's headlines in the following days coined the term "Beatlemania" to describe the riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans who greeted the band – and it stuck. Although not billed as tour leaders, the Beatles overshadowed American acts Tommy Roe and Chris Montez during the February engagements and assumed top billing "by audience demand", something no British act had previously accomplished while touring with artists from the US. A similar situation arose during their May–June tour with Roy Orbison. In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962. On their return to the UK on 31 October, several hundred screaming fans greeted them in heavy rain at Heathrow Airport. Around 50 to 100 journalists and photographers, as well as representatives from the BBC, also joined the airport reception, the first of more than 100 such events. The next day, the band began its fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks. In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth. On 4 November, they played in front of The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret during the Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Please Please Me maintained the top position on the Record Retailer chart for 30 weeks, only to be displaced by its follow-up, With the Beatles, which EMI released on 22 November to record advance orders of 270,000 copies. The LP topped a half-million albums sold in one week. Recorded between July and October, With the Beatles made better use of studio production techniques than its predecessor. It held the top spot for 21 weeks with a chart life of 40 weeks. Erlewine described the LP as "a sequel of the highest order – one that betters the original". In a reversal of then standard practice, EMI released the album ahead of the impending single "I Want to Hold Your Hand", with the song excluded to maximise the single's sales. The album caught the attention of music critic William Mann of The Times, who suggested that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963". The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability. With the Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack. When writing the sleeve notes for the album, the band's press officer, Tony Barrow, used the superlative the "fabulous foursome", which the media widely adopted as "the Fab Four". First visit to the United States and the British Invasion EMI's American subsidiary, Capitol Records, hindered the Beatles' releases in the United States for more than a year by initially declining to issue their music, including their first three singles. Concurrent negotiations with the independent US label Vee-Jay led to the release of some, but not all, of the songs in 1963. Vee-Jay finished preparation for the album Introducing... The Beatles, comprising most of the songs of Parlophone's Please Please Me, but a management shake-up led to the album not being released. After it emerged that the label did not report royalties on their sales, the licence that Vee-Jay had signed with EMI was voided. A new licence was granted to the Swan label for the single "She Loves You". The record received some airplay in the Tidewater area of Virginia from Gene Loving of radio station WGH and was featured on the "Rate-a-Record" segment of American Bandstand, but it failed to catch on nationally. Epstein brought a demo copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to Capitol's Brown Meggs, who signed the band and arranged for a $40,000 US marketing campaign. American chart success began after disc jockey Carroll James of AM radio station WWDC, in Washington, DC, obtained a copy of the British single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in mid-December 1963 and began playing it on-air. Taped copies of the song soon circulated among other radio stations throughout the US. This caused an increase in demand, leading Capitol to bring forward the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by three weeks. Issued on 26 December, with the band's previously scheduled debut there just weeks away, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold a million copies, becoming a number-one hit in the US by mid-January. In its wake Vee-Jay released Introducing... The Beatles along with Capitol's debut album, Meet the Beatles!, while Swan reactivated production of "She Loves You". On 7 February 1964, the Beatles departed from Heathrow with an estimated 4,000 fans waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. Upon landing at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, an uproarious crowd estimated at 3,000 greeted them. They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households, or 34 per cent of the American population. Biographer Jonathan Gould writes that, according to the Nielsen rating service, it was "the largest audience that had ever been recorded for an American television program". The next morning, the Beatles awoke to a largely negative critical consensus in the US, but a day later at their first US concert, Beatlemania erupted at the Washington Coliseum. Back in New York the following day, the Beatles met with another strong reception during two shows at Carnegie Hall. The band flew to Florida, where they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show a second time, again before 70 million viewers, before returning to the UK on 22 February. The Beatles' first visit to the US took place when the nation was still mourning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the previous November. Commentators often suggest that for many, particularly the young, the Beatles' performances reignited the sense of excitement and possibility that momentarily faded in the wake of the assassination, and helped pave the way for the revolutionary social changes to come later in the decade. Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults, became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture. The group's popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and many other UK acts subsequently made their American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion. The Beatles' success in the US opened the door for a successive string of British beat groups and pop acts such as the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, Petula Clark, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones to achieve success in America. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five. A Hard Day's Night Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 did not go unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records, encouraged its film division to offer the Beatles a three-motion-picture deal, primarily for the commercial potential of the soundtracks in the US. Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night involved the band for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a musical comedy. The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success, with some critics drawing a comparison with the Marx Brothers. United Artists released a full soundtrack album for the North American market, combining Beatles songs and Martin's orchestral score; elsewhere, the group's third studio LP, A Hard Day's Night, contained songs from the film on side one and other new recordings on side two. According to Erlewine, the album saw them "truly coming into their own as a band. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound, filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies." That "ringing guitar" sound was primarily the product of Harrison's 12-string electric Rickenbacker, a prototype given to him by the manufacturer, which made its debut on the record. 1964 world tour, meeting Bob Dylan, and stand on civil rights Touring internationally in June and July, the Beatles staged 37 shows over 27 days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. In August and September, they returned to the US, with a 30-concert tour of 23 cities. Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 fans to each 30-minute performance in cities from San Francisco to New York. In August, journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the Beatles to meet Bob Dylan. Visiting the band in their New York hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis. Gould points out the musical and cultural significance of this meeting, before which the musicians' respective fanbases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style" contrasted with their fans, "veritable 'teenyboppers' – kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialised popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. To many of Dylan's followers in the folk music scene, the Beatles were seen as idolaters, not idealists." Within six months of the meeting, according to Gould, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona"; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with a backing band and electric instrumentation, and "dressed in the height of Mod fashion". As a result, Gould continues, the traditional division between folk and rock enthusiasts "nearly evaporated", as the Beatles' fans began to mature in their outlook and Dylan's audience embraced the new, youth-driven pop culture. During the 1964 US tour, the group were confronted with racial segregation in the country at the time. When informed that the venue for their 11 September concert, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, was segregated, the Beatles said they would refuse to perform unless the audience was integrated. Lennon stated: "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now ... I'd sooner lose our appearance money." City officials relented and agreed to allow an integrated show. The group also cancelled their reservations at the whites-only Hotel George Washington in Jacksonville. For their subsequent US tours in 1965 and 1966, the Beatles included clauses in contracts stipulating that shows be integrated. Beatles for Sale, Help! and Rubber Soul According to Gould, the Beatles' fourth studio LP, Beatles for Sale, evidenced a growing conflict between the commercial pressures of their global success and their creative ambitions. They had intended the album, recorded between August and October 1964, to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike their first two LPs, contained only original songs. They had nearly exhausted their backlog of songs on the previous album, however, and given the challenges constant international touring posed to their songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of a problem". As a result, six covers from their extensive repertoire were chosen to complete the album. Released in early December, its eight original compositions stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. In early 1965, following a dinner with Lennon, Harrison and their wives, Harrison's dentist, John Riley, secretly added LSD to their coffee. Lennon described the experience: "It was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I was pretty stunned for a month or two." He and Harrison subsequently became regular users of the drug, joined by Starr on at least one occasion. Harrison's use of psychedelic drugs encouraged his path to meditation and Hinduism. He commented: "For me, it was like a flash. The first time I had acid, it just opened up something in my head that was inside of me, and I realised a lot of things. I didn't learn them because I already knew them, but that happened to be the key that opened the door to reveal them. From the moment I had that, I wanted to have it all the time – these thoughts about the yogis and the Himalayas, and Ravi's music." McCartney was initially reluctant to try it, but eventually did so in late 1966. He became the first Beatle to discuss LSD publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society". Controversy erupted in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Harold Wilson nominated them for the award. In protest – the honour was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders – some conservative MBE recipients returned their insignia. In July, the Beatles' second film, Help!, was released, again directed by Lester. Described as "mainly a relentless spoof of Bond", it inspired a mixed response among both reviewers and the band. McCartney said: "Help! was great but it wasn't our film – we were sort of guest stars. It was fun, but basically, as an idea for a film, it was a bit wrong." The soundtrack was dominated by Lennon, who wrote and sang lead on most of its songs, including the two singles: "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride". The Help! album, the group's fifth studio LP, mirrored A Hard Day's Night by featuring soundtrack songs on side one and additional songs from the same sessions on side two. The LP contained all original material save for two covers, "Act Naturally" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"; they were the last covers the band would include on an album until Let It Be's brief rendition of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae". The band expanded their use of vocal overdubs on Help! and incorporated classical instruments into some arrangements, including a string quartet on the pop ballad "Yesterday". Composed and sung by McCartney – none of the other Beatles perform on the recording – "Yesterday" has inspired the most cover versions of any song ever written. With Help!, the Beatles became the first rock group to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The group's third US tour opened with a performance before a world-record crowd of 55,600 at New York's Shea Stadium on 15 August – "perhaps the most famous of all Beatles' concerts", in Lewisohn's description. A further nine successful concerts followed in other American cities. At a show in Atlanta, the Beatles gave one of the first live performances ever to make use of a foldback system of on-stage monitor speakers. Towards the end of the tour, they met with Elvis Presley, a foundational musical influence on the band, who invited them to his home in Beverly Hills. Presley later said the band was an example of a trend of anti-Americanism and drug abuse. September 1965 saw the launch of an American Saturday-morning cartoon series, The Beatles, that echoed A Hard Day's Night's slapstick antics over its two-year original run. The series was the first weekly television series to feature animated versions of real, living people. In mid-October, the Beatles entered the recording studio; for the first time when making an album, they had an extended period without other major commitments. Until this time, according to George Martin, "we had been making albums rather like a collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own." Released in December, Rubber Soul was hailed by critics as a major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music. Their thematic reach was beginning to expand as they embraced deeper aspects of romance and philosophy, a development that NEMS executive Peter Brown attributed to the band members' "now habitual use of marijuana". Lennon referred to Rubber Soul as "the pot album" and Starr said: "Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers. And because they were writing different material, we were playing differently." After Help!'s foray into classical music with flutes and strings, Harrison's introduction of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" marked a further progression outside the traditional boundaries of popular music. As the lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning. While some of Rubber Soul's songs were the product of Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting, the album also included distinct compositions from each, though they continued to share official credit. "In My Life", of which each later claimed lead authorship, is considered a highlight of the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue. Harrison called Rubber Soul his "favourite album", and Starr referred to it as "the departure record". McCartney has said, "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand." However, recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the studio sessions revealed signs of growing conflict within the group – "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right". Controversies, Revolver and final tour Capitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format, compiling distinct US albums from the band's recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles. In June 1966, the Capitol LP Yesterday and Today caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. According to Beatles biographer Bill Harry, it has been incorrectly suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of the band's albums. Thousands of copies of the LP had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction. In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who agreed to train him on the instrument. During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations. They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty. Immediately afterwards, the band members visited India for the first time. Almost as soon as they returned home, the Beatles faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave. "Christianity will go", Lennon had said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right ... Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." His comments went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine Datebook printed them five months later, it sparked a controversy with Christians in America's conservative Bible Belt region. The Vatican issued a protest, and bans on Beatles records were imposed by Spanish and Dutch stations and South Africa's national broadcasting service. Epstein accused Datebook of having taken Lennon's words out of context. At a press conference, Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it." He claimed that he was referring to how other people viewed their success, but at the prompting of reporters, he concluded: "If you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry." Released in August 1966, a week before the Beatles' final tour, Revolver marked another artistic step forward for the group. The album featured sophisticated songwriting, studio experimentation, and a greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles, ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelia. Abandoning the customary group photograph, its Aubrey Beardsley-inspired cover – designed by Klaus Voormann, a friend of the band since their Hamburg days – was a monochrome collage and line drawing caricature of the group. The album was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", backed by "Rain". Short promotional films were made for both songs; described by cultural historian Saul Austerlitz as "among the first true music videos", they aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops in June. Among the experimental songs on Revolver was "Tomorrow Never Knows", the lyrics for which Lennon drew from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Its creation involved eight tape decks distributed about the EMI building, each staffed by an engineer or band member, who randomly varied the movement of a tape loop while Martin created a composite recording by sampling the incoming data. McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" made prominent use of a string octet; Gould describes it as "a true hybrid, conforming to no recognisable style or genre of song". Harrison's emergence as a songwriter was reflected in three of his compositions appearing on the record. Among these, "Taxman", which opened the album, marked the first example of the Beatles making a political statement through their music. As preparations were made for a tour of the US, the Beatles knew that their music would hardly be heard. Having originally used Vox AC30 amplifiers, they later acquired more powerful 100-watt amplifiers, specially designed for them by Vox, as they moved into larger venues in 1964; however, these were still inadequate. Struggling to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans, the band had grown increasingly bored with the routine of performing live. Recognising that their shows were no longer about the music, they decided to make the August tour their last. The band performed none of their new songs on the tour. In Chris Ingham's description, they were very much "studio creations ... and there was no way a four-piece rock 'n' roll group could do them justice, particularly through the desensitising wall of the fans' screams. 'Live Beatles' and 'Studio Beatles' had become entirely different beasts." The band's concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on 29 August was their last commercial concert. It marked the end of four years dominated by almost non-stop touring that included over 1,400 concert appearances internationally. 1966–1970: Studio years Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Freed from the burden of touring, the Beatles embraced an increasingly experimental approach as they recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, beginning in late November 1966. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, the album's recording took over 700 hours. He recalled the band's insistence "that everything on Sgt. Pepper had to be different. We had microphones right down in the bells of brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins. We used giant primitive oscillators to vary the speed of instruments and vocals and we had tapes chopped to pieces and stuck together upside down and the wrong way around." Parts of "A Day in the Life" featured a 40-piece orchestra. The sessions initially yielded the non-album double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967; the Sgt. Pepper LP followed with a rush-release in May. The musical complexity of the records, created using relatively primitive four-track recording technology, astounded contemporary artists. Among music critics, acclaim for the album was virtually universal. Gould writes: The overwhelming consensus is that the Beatles had created a popular masterpiece: a rich, sustained, and overflowing work of collaborative genius whose bold ambition and startling originality dramatically enlarged the possibilities and raised the expectations of what the experience of listening to popular music on record could be. On the basis of this perception, Sgt. Pepper became the catalyst for an explosion of mass enthusiasm for album-formatted rock that would revolutionise both the aesthetics and the economics of the record business in ways that far outstripped the earlier pop explosions triggered by the Elvis phenomenon of 1956 and the Beatlemania phenomenon of 1963. In the wake of Sgt. Pepper, the underground and mainstream press widely publicised the Beatles as leaders of youth culture, as well as "lifestyle revolutionaries". The album was the first major pop/rock LP to include its complete lyrics, which appeared on the back cover. Those lyrics were the subject of critical analysis; for instance, in late 1967 the album was the subject of a scholarly inquiry by American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier, who observed that his students were "listening to the group's music with a degree of engagement that he, as a teacher of literature, could only envy". The elaborate cover also attracted considerable interest and study. A collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, it depicted the group as the fictional band referred to in the album's title track standing in front of a crowd of famous people. The heavy moustaches worn by the group reflected the growing influence of the hippie movement, while cultural historian Jonathan Harris describes their "brightly coloured parodies of military uniforms" as a knowingly "anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment" display. Sgt. Pepper topped the UK charts for 23 consecutive weeks, with a further four weeks at number one in the period through to February 1968. With 2.5 million copies sold within three months of its release, Sgt. Pepper's initial commercial success exceeded that of all previous Beatles albums. It was the first rock album to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It sustained its immense popularity into the 21st century while breaking numerous sales records. Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine Two Beatles film projects were conceived within weeks of completing Sgt. Pepper: Magical Mystery Tour, a one-hour television film, and Yellow Submarine, an animated feature-length film produced by United Artists. The group began recording music for the former in late April 1967, but the project then lay dormant as they focused on recording songs for the latter. On 25 June, the Beatles performed their forthcoming single "All You Need Is Love" to an estimated 350 million viewers on Our World, the first live global television link. Released a week later, during the Summer of Love, the song was adopted as a flower power anthem. The Beatles' use of psychedelic drugs was at its height during that summer. In July and August, the group pursued interests related to similar utopian-based ideology, including a week-long investigation into the possibility of starting an island-based commune off the coast of Greece. On 24 August, the group were introduced to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London. The next day, they travelled to Bangor for his Transcendental Meditation retreat. On 27 August, their manager's assistant, Peter Brown, phoned to inform them that Epstein had died. The coroner ruled the death an accidental carbitol overdose, although it was widely rumoured to be a suicide. His death left the group disoriented and fearful about the future. Lennon recalled: "We collapsed. I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared. I thought, 'We've fuckin' had it now.'" Harrison's then-wife Pattie Boyd remembered that "Paul and George were in complete shock. I don't think it could have been worse if they had heard that their own fathers had dropped dead." During a band meeting in September, McCartney recommended that the band proceed with Magical Mystery Tour. The Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack was released in the UK as a six-track double extended play (EP) in early December 1967. It was the first example of a double EP in the UK. The record carried on the psychedelic vein of Sgt. Pepper, though in line with the band's wishes, the packaging reinforced the idea that the release was a film soundtrack rather than a follow-up to Sgt. Pepper. In the US, the soundtrack appeared as an identically titled LP that also included five tracks from the band's recent singles. In its first three weeks, the album set a record for the highest initial sales of any Capitol LP, and it is the only Capitol compilation later to be adopted in the band's official canon of studio albums. Magical Mystery Tour first aired on Boxing Day to an audience of approximately 15 million. Largely directed by McCartney, the film was the band's first critical failure in the UK. It was dismissed as "blatant rubbish" by the Daily Express; the Daily Mail called it "a colossal conceit"; and The Guardian labelled the film "a kind of fantasy morality play about the grossness and warmth and stupidity of the audience". Gould describes it as "a great deal of raw footage showing a group of people getting on, getting off, and riding on a bus". Although the viewership figures were respectable, its slating in the press led US television networks to lose interest in broadcasting the film. The group were less involved with Yellow Submarine, which featured the band appearing as themselves for only a short live-action segment. Premiering in July 1968, the film featured cartoon versions of the band members and a soundtrack with eleven of their songs, including four unreleased studio recordings that made their debut in the film. Critics praised the film for its music, humour and innovative visual style. A soundtrack LP was issued seven months later; it contained those four new songs, the title track (already issued on Revolver), "All You Need Is Love" (already issued as a single and on the US Magical Mystery Tour LP) and seven instrumental pieces composed by Martin. India retreat, Apple Corps and the White Album In February 1968, the Beatles travelled to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, to take part in a three-month meditation "Guide Course". Their time in India marked one of the band's most prolific periods, yielding numerous songs, including a majority of those on their next album. However, Starr left after only ten days, unable to stomach the food, and McCartney eventually grew bored and departed a month later. For Lennon and Harrison, creativity turned to question when an electronics technician known as Magic Alex suggested that the Maharishi was attempting to manipulate them. When he alleged that the Maharishi had made sexual advances to women attendees, a persuaded Lennon left abruptly just two months into the course, bringing an unconvinced Harrison and the remainder of the group's entourage with him. In anger, Lennon wrote a scathing song titled "Maharishi", renamed "Sexy Sadie" to avoid potential legal issues. McCartney said, "We made a mistake. We thought there was more to him than there was." In May, Lennon and McCartney travelled to New York for the public unveiling of the Beatles' new business venture, Apple Corps. It was initially formed several months earlier as part of a plan to create a tax-effective business structure, but the band then desired to extend the corporation to other pursuits, including record distribution, peace activism, and education. McCartney described Apple as "rather like a Western communism". The enterprise drained the group financially with a series of unsuccessful projects handled largely by members of the Beatles' entourage, who were given their jobs regardless of talent and experience. Among its numerous subsidiaries were Apple Electronics, established to foster technological innovations with Magic Alex at the head, and Apple Retailing, which opened the short-lived Apple Boutique in London. Harrison later said, "Basically, it was chaos ... John and Paul got carried away with the idea and blew millions, and Ringo and I just had to go along with it." From late May to mid-October 1968, the group recorded what became The Beatles, a double LP commonly known as "the White Album" for its virtually featureless cover. During this time, relations between the members grew openly divisive. Starr quit for two weeks, leaving his bandmates to record "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" as a trio, with McCartney filling in on drums. Lennon had lost interest in collaborating with McCartney, whose contribution "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" he scorned as "granny music shit". Tensions were further aggravated by Lennon's romantic preoccupation with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, whom he insisted on bringing to the sessions despite the group's well-established understanding that girlfriends were not allowed in the studio. McCartney has recalled that the album "wasn't a pleasant one to make". He and Lennon identified the sessions as the start of the band's break-up. With the record, the band executed a wider range of musical styles and broke with their recent tradition of incorporating several musical styles in one song by keeping each piece of music consistently faithful to a select genre. During the sessions, the group upgraded to an eight-track tape console, which made it easier for them to layer tracks piecemeal, while the members often recorded independently of each other, affording the album a reputation as a collection of solo recordings rather than a unified group effort. Describing the double album, Lennon later said: "Every track is an individual track; there isn't any Beatle music on it. [It's] John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band." The sessions also produced the Beatles' longest song yet, "Hey Jude", released in August as a non-album single with "Revolution". Issued in November, the White Album was the band's first Apple Records album release, although EMI continued to own their recordings. The record attracted more than 2 million advance orders, selling nearly 4 million copies in the US in little over a month, and its tracks dominated the playlists of American radio stations. Its lyrical content was the focus of much analysis by the counterculture. Despite its popularity, reviewers were largely confused by the album's content, and it failed to inspire the level of critical writing that Sgt. Pepper had. Abbey Road, Let It Be and separation Although Let It Be was the Beatles' final album release, it was largely recorded before Abbey Road. The project's impetus came from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney, who suggested they "record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a live audience for the very first time – on record and on film". Originally intended for a one-hour television programme to be called Beatles at Work, in the event much of the album's content came from studio work beginning in January 1969, many hours of which were captured on film by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Martin said that the project was "not at all a happy recording experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb." Lennon described the largely impromptu sessions as "hell ... the most miserable ... on Earth", and Harrison, "the low of all-time". Irritated by McCartney and Lennon, Harrison walked out for five days. Upon returning, he threatened to leave the band unless they "abandon[ed] all talk of live performance" and instead focused on finishing a new album, initially titled Get Back, using songs recorded for the TV special. He also demanded they cease work at Twickenham Film Studios, where the sessions had begun, and relocate to the newly finished Apple Studio. His bandmates agreed, and it was decided to salvage the footage shot for the TV production for use in a feature film. To alleviate tensions within the band and improve the quality of their live sound, Harrison invited keyboardist Billy Preston to participate in the last nine days of sessions. Preston received label billing on the "Get Back" single – the only musician ever to receive that acknowledgment on an official Beatles release. After the rehearsals, the band could not agree on a location to film a concert, rejecting several ideas, including a boat at sea, a lunatic asylum, the Libyan desert, and the Colosseum. Ultimately, what would be their final live performance was filmed on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London, on 30 January 1969. Five weeks later, engineer Glyn Johns, whom Lewisohn describes as Get Back's "uncredited producer", began work assembling an album, given "free rein" as the band "all but washed their hands of the entire project". New strains developed between the band members regarding the appointment of a financial adviser, the need for which had become evident without Epstein to manage business affairs. Lennon, Harrison and Starr favoured Allen Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones and Sam Cooke; McCartney wanted Lee and John Eastman – father and brother, respectively, of Linda Eastman, whom McCartney married on 12 March. Agreement could not be reached, so both Klein and the Eastmans were temporarily appointed: Klein as the Beatles' business manager and the Eastmans as their lawyers. Further conflict ensued, however, and financial opportunities were lost. On 8 May, Klein was named sole manager of the band, the Eastmans having previously been dismissed as the Beatles' lawyers. McCartney refused to sign the management contract with Klein, but he was out-voted by the other Beatles. Martin stated that he was surprised when McCartney asked him to produce another album, as the Get Back sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us". The primary recording sessions for Abbey Road began on 2 July. Lennon, who rejected Martin's proposed format of a "continuously moving piece of music", wanted his and McCartney's songs to occupy separate sides of the album. The eventual format, with individually composed songs on the first side and the second consisting largely of a medley, was McCartney's suggested compromise. Emerick noted that the replacement of the studio's valve-based mixing console with a transistorised one yielded a less punchy sound, leaving the group frustrated at the thinner tone and lack of impact and contributing to its "kinder, gentler" feel relative to their previous albums. On 4 July, the first solo single by a Beatle was released: Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance", credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The completion and mixing of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August was the last occasion on which all four Beatles were together in the same studio. On 8 September, while Starr was in hospital, the other band members met to discuss recording a new album. They considered a different approach to songwriting by ending the Lennon–McCartney pretence and having four compositions apiece from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, with two from Starr and a lead single around Christmas. On 20 September, Lennon announced his departure to the rest of the group but agreed to withhold a public announcement to avoid undermining sales of the forthcoming album. Released on 26 September, Abbey Road sold four million copies within three months and topped the UK charts for a total of seventeen weeks. Its second track, the ballad "Something", was issued as a single – the only Harrison composition that appeared as a Beatles A-side. Abbey Road received mixed reviews, although the medley met with general acclaim. Unterberger considers it "a fitting swan song for the group", containing "some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record". Musicologist and author Ian MacDonald calls the album "erratic and often hollow", despite the "semblance of unity and coherence" offered by the medley. Martin singled it out as his favourite Beatles album; Lennon said it was "competent" but had "no life in it". For the still unfinished Get Back album, one last song, Harrison's "I Me Mine", was recorded on 3 January 1970. Lennon, in Denmark at the time, did not participate. In March, rejecting the work Johns had done on the project, now retitled Let It Be, Klein gave the session tapes to American producer Phil Spector, who had recently produced Lennon's solo single "Instant Karma!" In addition to remixing the material, Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the recordings that had been intended as "live". McCartney was unhappy with the producer's approach and particularly dissatisfied with the lavish orchestration on "The Long and Winding Road", which involved a fourteen-voice choir and 36-piece instrumental ensemble. McCartney's demands that the alterations to the song be reverted were ignored, and he publicly announced his departure from the band on 10 April, a week before the release of his first self-titled solo album. On 8 May 1970, Let It Be was released. Its accompanying single, "The Long and Winding Road", was expected to be the Beatles' last; it was released in the US, but not in the UK. The Let It Be documentary film followed later that month, and would win the 1970 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Sunday Telegraph critic Penelope Gilliatt called it "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings". Several reviewers stated that some of the performances in the film sounded better than their analogous album tracks. Describing Let It Be as the "only Beatles album to occasion negative, even hostile reviews", Unterberger calls it "on the whole underrated"; he singles out "some good moments of straight hard rock in 'I've Got a Feeling' and 'Dig a Pony'" and praises "Let It Be", "Get Back", and "the folky 'Two of Us', with John and Paul harmonising together". McCartney filed suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership on 31 December 1970. Legal disputes continued long after their break-up, and the dissolution was not formalised until 29 December 1974, when Lennon signed the paperwork terminating the partnership while on vacation with his family at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. After the breakup 1970s Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr all released solo albums in 1970. Their solo records sometimes involved one or more of the other members; Starr's Ringo (1973) was the only album to include compositions and performances by all four ex-Beatles, albeit on separate songs. With Starr's participation, Harrison staged the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971. Other than an unreleased jam session in 1974, later bootlegged as A Toot and a Snore in '74, Lennon and McCartney never recorded together again. Two double-LP sets of the Beatles' greatest hits, compiled by Klein, 1962–1966 and 1967–1970, were released in 1973, at first under the Apple Records imprint. Commonly known as the "Red Album" and "Blue Album", respectively, each has earned a Multi-Platinum certification in the US and a Platinum certification in the UK. Between 1976 and 1982, EMI/Capitol released a wave of compilation albums without input from the ex-Beatles, starting with the double-disc compilation Rock 'n' Roll Music. The only one to feature previously unreleased material was The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (1977); the first officially issued concert recordings by the group, it contained selections from two shows they played during their 1964 and 1965 US tours. The music and enduring fame of the Beatles were commercially exploited in various other ways, again often outside their creative control. In April 1974, the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert, written by Willy Russell and featuring singer Barbara Dickson, opened in London. It included, with permission from Northern Songs, eleven Lennon–McCartney compositions and one by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun". Displeased with the production's use of his song, Harrison withdrew his permission to use it. Later that year, the off-Broadway musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road opened. All This and World War II (1976) was an unorthodox nonfiction film that combined newsreel footage with covers of Beatles songs by performers ranging from Elton John and Keith Moon to the London Symphony Orchestra. The Broadway musical Beatlemania, an unauthorised nostalgia revue, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions. In 1979, the band sued the producers, settling for several million dollars in damages. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and an "artistic fiasco", according to Ingham. Accompanying the wave of Beatles nostalgia and persistent reunion rumours in the US during the 1970s, several entrepreneurs made public offers to the Beatles for a reunion concert. Promoter Bill Sargent first offered the Beatles $10 million for a reunion concert in 1974. He raised his offer to $30 million in January 1976 and then to $50 million the following month. On 24 April 1976, during a broadcast of Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York, which was within driving distance of the NBC studio where the show was being broadcast. The former bandmates briefly entertained the idea of going to the studio and surprising Michaels by accepting his offer, but decided not to. 1980s In December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. Harrison rewrote the lyrics of his song "All Those Years Ago" in Lennon's honour. With Starr on drums and McCartney and his wife, Linda, contributing backing vocals, the song was released as a single in May 1981. McCartney's own tribute, "Here Today", appeared on his Tug of War album in April 1982. In 1984, Starr co-starred in McCartney's film Give My Regards to Broad Street, and played with McCartney on several of the songs on the soundtrack. In 1987, Harrison's Cloud Nine album included "When We Was Fab", a song about the Beatlemania era. When the Beatles' studio albums were released on CD by EMI and Apple Corps in 1987, their catalogue was standardised throughout the world, establishing a canon of the twelve original studio LPs as issued in the UK plus the US LP version of Magical Mystery Tour. All the remaining material from the singles and EPs that had not appeared on these thirteen studio albums was gathered on the two-volume compilation Past Masters (1988). Except for the Red and Blue albums, EMI deleted all its other Beatles compilations – including the Hollywood Bowl record – from its catalogue. In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their first year of eligibility. Harrison and Starr attended the ceremony with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his two sons, Julian and Sean. McCartney declined to attend, citing unresolved "business differences" that would make him "feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion". The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit filed by the band over royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material. 1990s Live at the BBC, the first official release of unissued Beatles performances in seventeen years, appeared in 1994. That same year McCartney, Harrison and Starr collaborated on the Anthology project. Anthology was the culmination of work begun in 1970, when Apple Corps director Neil Aspinall, their former road manager and personal assistant, had started to gather material for a documentary with the working title The Long and Winding Road. During 1995–96, the project yielded a television miniseries, an eight-volume video set, and three two-CD/three-LP box sets featuring artwork by Klaus Voormann. Documenting their history in the band's own words, the Anthology project included the release of several unissued Beatles recordings. Alongside producer Jeff Lynne, McCartney, Harrison and Starr also added new instrumental and vocal parts to songs recorded as demos by Lennon in the late 1970s, resulting in the release of two "new" Beatles singles, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". A third Lennon demo, "Now and Then", was also attempted, but abandoned due to the low quality of the recording. The Anthology releases were commercially successful and the television series was viewed by an estimated 400 million people. A book, The Beatles Anthology, followed in October 2000. In 1999, to coincide with the re-release of the 1968 film Yellow Submarine, an expanded soundtrack album, Yellow Submarine Songtrack, was issued. 2000s The Beatles' 1, a compilation album of the band's British and American number-one hits, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week and 13 million within a month. It topped albums charts in at least 28 countries. The compilation had sold 31 million copies globally by April 2009. Harrison died from metastatic lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George, organised by Eric Clapton and Harrison's widow, Olivia. The tribute event took place at the Royal Albert Hall on the first anniversary of Harrison's death. In 2003, Let It Be... Naked, a reconceived version of the Let It Be album, with McCartney supervising production, was released. One of the main differences from the Spector-produced version was the omission of the original string arrangements. It was a top-ten hit in both Britain and America. The US album configurations from 1964 to 1965 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006; The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of the music's original American release. As a soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles stage revue, Love, George Martin and his son Giles remixed and blended 130 of the band's recordings to create what Martin called "a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period". The show premiered in June 2006, and the Love album was released that November. In April 2009, Starr performed three songs with McCartney at a benefit concert held at New York's Radio City Music Hall and organised by McCartney. On 9 September 2009, the Beatles' entire back catalogue was reissued following an extensive digital remastering process that lasted four years. Stereo editions of all twelve original UK studio albums, along with Magical Mystery Tour and the Past Masters compilation, were released on compact disc both individually and as a box set. A second collection, The Beatles in Mono, included remastered versions of every Beatles album released in true mono along with the original 1965 stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul (both of which Martin had remixed for the 1987 editions). The Beatles: Rock Band, a music video game in the Rock Band series, was issued on the same day. In December 2009, the band's catalogue was officially released in FLAC and MP3 format in a limited edition of 30,000 USB flash drives. 2010s Owing to a long-running royalty disagreement, the Beatles were among the last major artists to sign deals with online music services. Residual disagreement emanating from Apple Corps' dispute with Apple, Inc., iTunes' owners, over the use of the name "Apple" was also partly responsible for the delay, although in 2008, McCartney stated that the main obstacle to making the Beatles' catalogue available online was that EMI "want[s] something we're not prepared to give them". In 2010, the official canon of thirteen Beatles studio albums, Past Masters, and the "Red" and "Blue" greatest-hits albums were made available on iTunes. In 2012, EMI's recorded music operations were sold to Universal Music Group. In order for Universal Music to acquire EMI, the European Union, for antitrust reasons, forced EMI to spin off assets including Parlophone. Universal was allowed to keep the Beatles' recorded music catalogue, managed by Capitol Records under its Capitol Music Group division. The entire original Beatles album catalogue was also reissued on vinyl in 2012; available either individually or as a box set. In 2013, a second volume of BBC recordings, On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2, was released. That December saw the release of another 59 Beatles recordings on iTunes. The set, titled The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, had the opportunity to gain a 70-year copyright extension conditional on the songs being published at least once before the end of 2013. Apple Records released the recordings on 17 December to prevent them from going into the public domain and had them taken down from iTunes later that same day. Fan reactions to the release were mixed, with one blogger saying "the hardcore Beatles collectors who are trying to obtain everything will already have these." On 26 January 2014, McCartney and Starr performed together at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The following day, The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles television special was taped in the Los Angeles Convention Center's West Hall. It aired on 9 February, the exact date of – and at the same time, and on the same network as – the original broadcast of the Beatles' first US television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, 50 years earlier. The special included performances of Beatles songs by current artists as well as by McCartney and Starr, archival footage, and interviews with the two surviving ex-Beatles carried out by David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater. In December 2015, the Beatles released their catalogue for streaming on various streaming music services including Spotify and Apple Music. In September 2016, the documentary film The Beatles: Eight Days a Week was released. Directed by Ron Howard, it chronicled the Beatles' career during their touring years from 1961 to 1966, from their performances in Liverpool's the Cavern Club in 1961 to their final concert in San Francisco in 1966. The film was released theatrically on 15 September in the UK and the US, and started streaming on Hulu on 17 September. It received several awards and nominations, including for Best Documentary at the 70th British Academy Film Awards and the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the 69th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. An expanded, remixed and remastered version of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl was released on 9 September, to coincide with the release of the film. On 18 May 2017, Sirius XM Radio launched a 24/7 radio channel, The Beatles Channel. A week later, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was reissued with new stereo mixes and unreleased material for the album's 50th anniversary. Similar box sets were released for The Beatles in November 2018, and Abbey Road in September 2019. On the first week of October 2019, Abbey Road returned to number one on the UK Albums Chart. The Beatles broke their own record for the album with the longest gap between topping the charts as Abbey Road hit the top spot 50 years after its original release. 2020s In November 2021, The Beatles: Get Back, a documentary directed by Peter Jackson using footage captured for the Let It Be film, was released on Disney+ as a three-part miniseries. A book also titled The Beatles: Get Back was released on 12 October, ahead of the documentary. A super deluxe version of the Let It Be album was released on 15 October. In January 2022, the album Get Back (Rooftop Performance), consisting of newly mixed audio of the Beatles' rooftop performance, was released on streaming services. In 2022, McCartney and Starr collaborated on a new recording of "Let It Be" with Dolly Parton, Peter Frampton and Mick Fleetwood, which was released on Parton's album Rockstar in November 2023. In October, a special edition of Revolver was released, featuring unreleased demos, studio outtakes, the original mono mix and a new stereo remix using AI de-mixing technology developed by Peter Jackson's WingNut Films, which had previously been used to restore audio for the documentary Get Back. New music videos were produced for "Here, There and Everywhere" and "I'm Only Sleeping", the latter of which won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. In June 2023, McCartney announced plans to release "the final Beatles record" later in the year, using Jackson's de-mixing technology to extract Lennon's voice from an old demo of a song that he had written as a solo artist. In October 2023, the song was revealed to be "Now and Then", with a physical and digital release date of 2 November 2023. The official music video for "Now and Then" was released the following day, garnering upwards of 8 million views in its first 12 hours, as the song arrived on Spotify's rankings as one of the most-streamed current songs. "Now and Then" debuted simultaneously across music, alternative, news/talk and sports stations. The song's premiere achieved the record for the most radio stations to simulcast a music track. The song became their first UK number one single since 1969. On 8 May 2024 the 1970 film Let It Be, digitally restored by Peter Jackson's Park Road Post, was released on Disney+, marking the first time it has been publicly screened since its original theatrical release. Artistry Development In Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever, Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz describe the Beatles' musical evolution: In their initial incarnation as cheerful, wisecracking moptops, the Fab Four revolutionised the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts. Their initial impact would have been enough to establish the Beatles as one of their era's most influential cultural forces, but they didn't stop there. Although their initial style was a highly original, irresistibly catchy synthesis of early American rock and roll and R&B, the Beatles spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers, consistently staking out new musical territory on each release. The band's increasingly sophisticated experimentation encompassed a variety of genres, including folk-rock, country, psychedelia, and baroque pop, without sacrificing the effortless mass appeal of their early work. In The Beatles as Musicians, Walter Everett describes Lennon and McCartney's contrasting motivations and approaches to composition: "McCartney may be said to have constantly developed – as a means to entertain – a focused musical talent with an ear for counterpoint and other aspects of craft in the demonstration of a universally agreed-upon common language that he did much to enrich. Conversely, Lennon's mature music is best appreciated as the daring product of a largely unconscious, searching but undisciplined artistic sensibility." Ian MacDonald describes McCartney as "a natural melodist – a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony". His melody lines are characterised as primarily "vertical", employing wide, consonant intervals which express his "extrovert energy and optimism". Conversely, Lennon's "sedentary, ironic personality" is reflected in a "horizontal" approach featuring minimal, dissonant intervals and repetitive melodies which rely on their harmonic accompaniment for interest: "Basically a realist, he instinctively kept his melodies close to the rhythms and cadences of speech, colouring his lyrics with bluesy tone and harmony rather than creating tunes that made striking shapes of their own." MacDonald praises Harrison's lead guitar work for the role his "characterful lines and textural colourings" play in supporting Lennon and McCartney's parts and describes Starr as "the father of modern pop/rock drumming". Influences The Beatles' earliest influences include Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent. During the Beatles' co-residency with Little Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg, from April to May 1962, he advised them on the proper technique for performing his songs. Of Presley, Lennon said, "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been Elvis, there would not have been the Beatles." Chuck Berry was particularly influential in terms of songwriting and lyrics. Lennon noted, "He was well advanced of his time lyric-wise. We all owe a lot to him." Other early influences include Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries, including Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Who, Frank Zappa, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds and the Beach Boys, whose 1966 album Pet Sounds amazed and inspired McCartney. Referring to the Beach Boys' creative leader, Martin later stated: "No one made a greater impact on the Beatles than Brian [Wilson]." Ravi Shankar, with whom Harrison studied for six weeks in India in late 1966, had a significant effect on his musical development during the band's later years. Genres Originating as a skiffle group, the Beatles quickly embraced 1950s rock and roll and helped pioneer the Merseybeat genre, and their repertoire ultimately expanded to include a broad variety of pop music. Reflecting the range of styles they explored, Lennon said of Beatles for Sale, "You could call our new one a Beatles country-and-western LP", while Gould credits Rubber Soul as "the instrument by which legions of folk-music enthusiasts were coaxed into the camp of pop". Although the 1965 song "Yesterday" was not the first pop record to employ orchestral strings, it marked the group's first recorded use of classical music elements. Gould observes, "The more traditional sound of strings allowed for a fresh appreciation of their talent as composers by listeners who were otherwise allergic to the din of drums and electric guitars." They continued to experiment with string arrangements to various effect; Sgt. Pepper's "She's Leaving Home", for instance, is "cast in the mold of a sentimental Victorian ballad", Gould writes, "its words and music filled with the clichés of musical melodrama". The band's stylistic range expanded in another direction with their 1966 B-side "Rain", described by Martin Strong as "the first overtly psychedelic Beatles record". Other psychedelic numbers followed, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (recorded before "Rain"), "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", and "I Am the Walrus". The influence of Indian classical music was evident in Harrison's "The Inner Light", "Love You To", and "Within You Without You" – Gould describes the latter two as attempts "to replicate the raga form in miniature". Innovation was the most striking feature of their creative evolution, according to music historian and pianist Michael Campbell: "'A Day in the Life' encapsulates the art and achievement of the Beatles as well as any single track can. It highlights key features of their music: the sound imagination, the persistence of tuneful melody, and the close coordination between words and music. It represents a new category of song – more sophisticated than pop ... and uniquely innovative. There literally had never before been a song – classical or vernacular – that had blended so many disparate elements so imaginatively." Philosophy professor Bruce Ellis Benson agrees: "The Beatles ... give us a wonderful example of how such far-ranging influences as Celtic music, rhythm and blues, and country and western could be put together in a new way." Author Dominic Pedler describes the way they crossed musical styles: "Far from moving sequentially from one genre to another (as is sometimes conveniently suggested) the group maintained in parallel their mastery of the traditional, catchy chart hit while simultaneously forging rock and dabbling with a wide range of peripheral influences from country to vaudeville. One of these threads was their take on folk music, which would form such essential groundwork for their later collisions with Indian music and philosophy." As the personal relationships between the band members grew increasingly strained, their individual tastes became more apparent. The minimalistic cover artwork for the White Album contrasted with the complexity and diversity of its music, which encompassed Lennon's "Revolution 9" (whose musique concrète approach was influenced by Yoko Ono), Starr's country song "Don't Pass Me By", Harrison's rock ballad "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and the "proto-metal roar" of McCartney's "Helter Skelter". Contribution of George Martin George Martin's close involvement in his role as producer made him one of the leading candidates for the informal title of the "fifth Beatle". He applied his classical musical training in various ways, and functioned as "an informal music teacher" to the progressing songwriters, according to Gould. Martin suggested to a sceptical McCartney that the arrangement of "Yesterday" should feature a string quartet accompaniment, thereby introducing the Beatles to a "hitherto unsuspected world of classical instrumental colour", in MacDonald's description. Their creative development was also facilitated by Martin's willingness to experiment in response to their suggestions, such as adding "something baroque" to a particular recording. In addition to scoring orchestral arrangements for recordings, Martin often performed on them, playing instruments including piano, organ and brass. Collaborating with Lennon and McCartney required Martin to adapt to their different approaches to songwriting and recording. MacDonald comments, "while [he] worked more naturally with the conventionally articulate McCartney, the challenge of catering to Lennon's intuitive approach generally spurred him to his more original arrangements, of which "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is an outstanding example." Martin said of the two composers' distinct songwriting styles and his stabilising influence: Compared with Paul's songs, all of which seemed to keep in some sort of touch with reality, John's had a psychedelic, almost mystical quality ... John's imagery is one of the best things about his work – 'tangerine trees', 'marmalade skies', 'cellophane flowers' ... I always saw him as an aural Salvador Dalí, rather than some drug-ridden record artist. On the other hand, I would be stupid to pretend that drugs didn't figure quite heavily in the Beatles' lives at that time ... they knew that I, in my schoolmasterly role, didn't approve ... Not only was I not into it myself, I couldn't see the need for it; and there's no doubt that, if I too had been on dope, Pepper would never have been the album it was. Perhaps it was the combination of dope and no dope that worked, who knows? Harrison echoed Martin's description of his stabilising role: "I think we just grew through those years together, him as the straight man and us as the loonies; but he was always there for us to interpret our madness – we used to be slightly avant-garde on certain days of the week, and he would be there as the anchor person, to communicate that through the engineers and on to the tape." In the studio Making innovative use of technology while expanding the possibilities of recorded music, the Beatles urged experimentation by Martin and his recording engineers. Seeking ways to put chance occurrences to creative use, accidental guitar feedback, a resonating glass bottle, a tape loaded the wrong way round so that it played backwards – any of these might be incorporated into their music. Their desire to create new sounds on every new recording, combined with Martin's arranging abilities and the studio expertise of EMI staff engineers Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, all contributed significantly to their records from Rubber Soul and, especially, Revolver onwards. Along with innovative studio techniques such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, tape loops, double tracking, and vari-speed recording, the Beatles augmented their songs with instruments that were unconventional in rock music at the time. These included string and brass ensembles as well as Indian instruments such as the sitar in "Norwegian Wood" and the swarmandal in "Strawberry Fields Forever". They also used novel electronic instruments such as the Mellotron, with which McCartney supplied the flute voices on the "Strawberry Fields Forever" intro, and the clavioline, an electronic keyboard that created the unusual oboe-like sound on "Baby, You're a Rich Man". Legacy Former Rolling Stone magazine associate editor Robert Greenfield compared the Beatles to Picasso, as "artists who broke through the constraints of their time period to come up with something that was unique and original ... [I]n the form of popular music, no one will ever be more revolutionary, more creative and more distinctive ..." The British poet Philip Larkin described their work as "an enchanting and intoxicating hybrid of Negro rock-and-roll with their own adolescent romanticism" and "the first advance in popular music since the War". In 1964, the Beatles' arrival in the U.S. is credited with initiating the album era; the music historian Joel Whitburn says that LP sales soon "exploded and eventually outpaced the sales and releases of singles" in the music industry. They not only sparked the British Invasion of the US, they became a globally influential phenomenon as well. From the 1920s, the US had dominated popular entertainment culture throughout much of the world, via Hollywood films, jazz, the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, and later, the rock and roll that first emerged in Memphis, Tennessee. The Beatles are regarded as British cultural icons, with young adults from abroad naming the band among a group of people whom they most associated with UK culture. Their musical innovations and commercial success inspired musicians worldwide. Many artists have acknowledged the Beatles' influence and enjoyed chart success with covers of their songs. On radio, their arrival marked the beginning of a new era; in 1968 the programme director of New York's WABC radio station forbade his DJs from playing any "pre-Beatles" music, marking the defining line of what would be considered oldies on American radio. They helped to redefine the album as something more than just a few hits padded out with "filler", and they were primary innovators of the modern music video. The Shea Stadium show with which they opened their 1965 North American tour attracted an estimated 55,600 people, then the largest audience in concert history; Spitz describes the event as a "major breakthrough ... a giant step toward reshaping the concert business". Emulation of their clothing and especially their hairstyles, which became a mark of rebellion, had a global impact on fashion. According to Gould, the Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatlemania fad, the group's popularity grew into what was seen as an embodiment of sociocultural movements of the decade. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, Gould continues, they became a catalyst for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fuelling movements such as women's liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism. According to Peter Lavezzoli, after the "more popular than Jesus" controversy in 1966, the Beatles felt considerable pressure to say the right things and "began a concerted effort to spread a message of wisdom and higher consciousness". Other commentators such as Mikal Gilmore and Todd Leopold have traced the inception of their socio-cultural impact earlier, interpreting even the Beatlemania period, particularly on their first visit to the US, as a key moment in the development of generational awareness. Referring to their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show Leopold states: "In many ways, the Sullivan appearance marked the beginning of a cultural revolution ... The Beatles were like aliens dropped into the United States of 1964." According to Gilmore: Elvis Presley had shown us how rebellion could be fashioned into eye-opening style; the Beatles were showing us how style could have the impact of cultural revelation – or at least how a pop vision might be forged into an unimpeachable consensus. Established in 2009, Global Beatles Day is an annual holiday on 25 June each year that honours and celebrates the ideals of the Beatles. The date was chosen to commemorate the date the group participated in the BBC programme Our World in 1967, performing "All You Need Is Love" broadcast to an international audience. Awards and achievements In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). The Beatles won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for the film Let It Be (1970). The recipients of seven Grammy Awards and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards, the Beatles have six Diamond albums, as well as 20 Multi-Platinum albums, 16 Platinum albums and six Gold albums in the US. In the UK, the Beatles have four Multi-Platinum albums, four Platinum albums, eight Gold albums and one Silver album. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. The best-selling band in history, the Beatles have sold more than 600 million units as of 2012. From 1991 to 2009 the Beatles sold 57 million albums in United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan. They have had more number-one albums on the UK charts, fifteen, and sold more singles in the UK, 21.9 million, than any other act. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the most significant and influential rock music artists of the last 50 years. They ranked number one on Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, released in 2008 to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary. As of 2017, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with twenty. The Recording Industry Association of America certifies that the Beatles have sold 183 million units in the US, more than any other artist. They were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. In 2014, they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. On 16 January each year, beginning in 2001, people celebrate World Beatles Day under UNESCO. This date has direct relation to the opening of the Cavern Club in 1957. In 2007, the Beatles became the first band to feature on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail. Earlier in 1999, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp dedicated to the Beatles and Yellow Submarine. In 2004 and 2011, Rolling Stone named them the greatest artist of all time. Personnel Timeline Discography The Beatles' core catalogue consists of thirteen studio albums and one compilation album which collects all the UK non-album singles and EP tracks: Song catalogue Until 1969, the Beatles' catalogue was published almost exclusively by Northern Songs Ltd, a company formed in February 1963 by music publisher Dick James specifically for Lennon and McCartney, though it later acquired songs by other artists. The company was organised with James and his partner, Emmanuel Silver, owning a controlling interest, variously described as 51% or 50% plus one share. McCartney had 20%. Reports again vary concerning Lennon's portion – 19 or 20% – and Brian Epstein's – 9 or 10% – which he received in lieu of a 25% band management fee. In 1965, the company went public. Five million shares were created, of which the original principals retained 3.75 million. James and Silver each received 937,500 shares (18.75% of 5 million); Lennon and McCartney each received 750,000 shares (15%); and Epstein's management company, NEMS Enterprises, received 375,000 shares (7.5%). Of the 1.25 million shares put up for sale, Harrison and Starr each acquired 40,000. At the time of the stock offering, Lennon and McCartney renewed their three-year publishing contracts, binding them to Northern Songs until 1973. Harrison created Harrisongs to represent his Beatles compositions, but signed a three-year contract with Northern Songs that gave it the copyright to his work through March 1968, which included "Taxman" and "Within You Without You". The songs on which Starr received co-writing credit before 1968, such as "What Goes On" and "Flying", were also Northern Songs copyrights. Harrison did not renew his contract with Northern Songs when it ended, signing instead with Apple Publishing while retaining the copyright to his work from that point on. Harrison thus owned the rights to his later Beatles songs such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something". That year, as well, Starr created Startling Music, which holds the rights to his Beatles compositions, "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". In March 1969, James arranged to sell his and his partner's shares of Northern Songs to the British broadcasting company Associated Television (ATV), founded by impresario Lew Grade, without first informing the Beatles. The band then made a bid to gain a controlling interest by attempting to work out a deal with a consortium of London brokerage firms that had accumulated a 14% holding. The deal collapsed over the objections of Lennon, who declared, "I'm sick of being fucked about by men in suits sitting on their fat arses in the City." By the end of May, ATV had acquired a majority stake in Northern Songs, controlling nearly the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue, as well as any future material until 1973. In frustration, Lennon and McCartney sold their shares to ATV in late October 1969. In 1981, financial losses by ATV's parent company, Associated Communications Corporation (ACC), led it to attempt to sell its music division. According to authors Brian Southall and Rupert Perry, Grade contacted McCartney, offering ATV Music and Northern Songs for $30 million. According to an account McCartney gave in 1995, he met with Grade and explained he was interested solely in the Northern Songs catalogue if Grade were ever willing to "separate off" that portion of ATV Music. Soon afterwards, Grade offered to sell him Northern Songs for £20 million, giving the ex-Beatle "a week or so" to decide. By McCartney's account, he and Ono countered with a £5 million bid that was rejected. According to reports at the time, Grade refused to separate Northern Songs and turned down an offer of £21–25 million from McCartney and Ono for Northern Songs. In 1982, ACC was acquired in a takeover by Australian business magnate Robert Holmes à Court for £60 million. In 1985, Michael Jackson purchased ATV for a reported $47.5 million. The acquisition gave him control over the publishing rights to more than 200 Beatles songs, as well as 40,000 other copyrights. In 1995, in a deal that earned him a reported $110 million, Jackson merged his music publishing business with Sony, creating a new company, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, in which he held a 50% stake. The merger made the new company, then valued at over half a billion dollars, the third-largest music publisher in the world. In 2016, Sony acquired Jackson's share of Sony/ATV from the Jackson estate for $750 million. Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of their songs, Lennon's estate and McCartney continue to receive their respective shares of the writers' royalties, which together are 331⁄3% of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere around the world between 50 and 55%. Two of Lennon and McCartney's earliest songs – "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" – were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before they signed with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in 1978, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by McCartney's company MPL Communications. On 18 January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in the United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years. McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017. Selected filmography Fictionalised A Hard Day's Night (1964) Help! (1965) Magical Mystery Tour (1967) Yellow Submarine (1968) (brief cameo) Documentaries and filmed performances The Beatles at Shea Stadium (1966) Let It Be (1970) The Compleat Beatles (1982) It Was Twenty Years Ago Today (1987) (about Sgt. Pepper) The Beatles Anthology (1995) The Beatles: 1+ (2015) (collection of digitally restored music videos) The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016) (about Beatlemania and touring years) The Beatles: Get Back (2021) Now and Then: The Last Beatles Song (2023) (short film about the creation of "Now and Then") Concert tours See also Outline of the Beatles The Beatles timeline Grammy Award records – most Grammys won by a group List of songs recorded by the Beatles Notes References Citations Sources Further reading External links Official website The Beatles at Amazon Music The Beatles on the Internet Archive The Beatles on Twitter The Beatles at Curlie The Beatles – FBI file The Hugo Keesing Collection on the Beatles, University of Maryland, hdl:1903.1/4593

Great_Depression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939 that affected many countries across the world. It became evident after a sharp decline in stock prices in the United States, the largest economy in the world at the time, leading to a period of economic depression. The economic contagion began around September 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October (Black Tuesday). This crisis marked the start of a prolonged period of economic hardship characterized by high unemployment rates and widespread business failures. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world were severely affected, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered the most. Economic historians usually consider the catalyst of the Great Depression to be the devastating Wall Street Crash. However, some dispute this, seeing the crash less as a cause of the Depression and more a symptom of the rising nervousness of investors partly due to gradual price declines caused by falling sales of consumer goods (as a result of overproduction because of new production techniques, falling exports and income inequality, among other factors) that had already been underway as part of a gradual depression. Overview After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with the Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then a deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. The decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first; then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated the collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. Economic indicators Course Origins Because the Great Depression began in the United States and then spread around the world, the origins of the Great Depression are examined in the context of the United States economy. In the aftermath of World War I, the Roaring Twenties had brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. The year 1929 dawned with considerable economic progress in the American economy. A small stock crash occurred on 25 March 1929, but the crash was stabilized. Despite signs of economic trouble, the market continued to improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at the end of September. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday, the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday, but the damage had been done. Though the market recovered from 14 November until 17 April 1930, it entered a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States (privately run, no relation to the government). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. The Smoot–Hawley act and the breakdown of international trade The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was passed in the United States on 17 June 1930, having been proposed the year prior. Ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy as the Depression began to take root, it backfired enormously and may have even caused the Depression. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians, Monetarists and Austrian economists) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression, although there is disagreement as to how much. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was a leading cause of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened the Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $5.2 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did the physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1⁄3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during the depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": "Countries that remained on the gold standard, keeping currencies fixed, were more likely to restrict foreign trade." These countries "resorted to protectionist policies to strengthen the balance of payments and limit gold losses." They hoped that these restrictions and depletions would hold the economic decline. Countries that abandoned the gold standard allowed their currencies to depreciate which caused their balance of payments to strengthen. It also freed up monetary policy so that central banks could lower interest rates and act as lenders of last resort. They possessed the best policy instruments to fight the Depression and did not need protectionism. "The length and depth of a country's economic downturn and the timing and vigor of its recovery are related to how long it remained on the gold standard. Countries abandoning the gold standard relatively early experienced relatively mild recessions and early recoveries. In contrast, countries remaining on the gold standard experienced prolonged slumps." The gold standard and the spreading of global depression The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and a monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism, countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and the domestic price level to decline (deflation). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Gold standard Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did the most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves, in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and the United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had a silver standard, almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries. This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around the world. German banking crisis of 1931 and British crisis The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in the first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations. This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August a standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to the coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse, the British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition "National Government". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with a small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard, and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. Turning point and recovery In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and the 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935, which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer, the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of the political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States, Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System. Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in the worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Role of women and household economics Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among the few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be a serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In the United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in a modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside the home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany, the government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing the behavior of housewives. World War II and recovery The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II. Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate the economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought the U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending the Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. Causes Trying to return to the Gold Standard During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic, Austria, and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act. Keynesian vs Monetarist view The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort. If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Mainstream explanations Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in A money supply reduction (Monetarists) and therefore a banking crisis, reduction of credit, and bankruptcies. Insufficient demand from the private sector and insufficient fiscal spending (Keynesians). Passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act exacerbated what otherwise might have been a more "standard" recession (both Monetarists and Keynesians). Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies (Irving Fisher's debt deflation). Monetarist view The monetarist explanation was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz. They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction". This caused a price drop of 33% (deflation). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing the monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of the New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch. One reason why the Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard. At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act, which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by a greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates, coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. Keynesian view British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment that was well below the average. In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment. Keynes's basic idea was simple: to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing, as the private sector would not invest enough to keep production at the normal level and bring the economy out of recession. Keynesian economists called on governments during times of economic crisis to pick up the slack by increasing government spending or cutting taxes. As the Depression wore on, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried public works, farm subsidies, and other devices to restart the U.S. economy, but never completely gave up trying to balance the budget. According to the Keynesians, this improved the economy, but Roosevelt never spent enough to bring the economy out of recession until the start of World War II. Debt deflation Irving Fisher argued that the predominant factor leading to the Great Depression was a vicious circle of deflation and growing over-indebtedness. He outlined nine factors interacting with one another under conditions of debt and deflation to create the mechanics of boom to bust. The chain of events proceeded as follows: Debt liquidation and distress selling Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off A fall in the level of asset prices A still greater fall in the net worth of businesses, precipitating bankruptcies A fall in profits A reduction in output, in trade and in employment Pessimism and loss of confidence Hoarding of money A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation adjusted interest rates During the Crash of 1929 preceding the Great Depression, margin requirements were only 10%. Brokerage firms, in other words, would lend $9 for every $1 an investor had deposited. When the market fell, brokers called in these loans, which could not be paid back. Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets. Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929 and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 U.S. banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s.) By April 1933, around $7 billion in deposits had been frozen in failed banks or those left unlicensed after the March Bank Holiday. Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans that borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending. Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified deflationary pressures. A vicious cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated. The liquidation of debt could not keep up with the fall of prices that it caused. The mass effect of the stampede to liquidate increased the value of each dollar owed, relative to the value of declining asset holdings. The very effort of individuals to lessen their burden of debt effectively increased it. Paradoxically, the more the debtors paid, the more they owed. This self-aggravating process turned a 1930 recession into a 1933 great depression. Fisher's debt-deflation theory initially lacked mainstream influence because of the counter-argument that debt-deflation represented no more than a redistribution from one group (debtors) to another (creditors). Pure re-distributions should have no significant macroeconomic effects. Building on both the monetary hypothesis of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz and the debt deflation hypothesis of Irving Fisher, Ben Bernanke developed an alternative way in which the financial crisis affected output. He builds on Fisher's argument that dramatic declines in the price level and nominal incomes lead to increasing real debt burdens, which in turn leads to debtor insolvency and consequently lowers aggregate demand; a further price level decline would then result in a debt deflationary spiral. According to Bernanke, a small decline in the price level simply reallocates wealth from debtors to creditors without doing damage to the economy. But when the deflation is severe, falling asset prices along with debtor bankruptcies lead to a decline in the nominal value of assets on bank balance sheets. Banks will react by tightening their credit conditions, which in turn leads to a credit crunch that seriously harms the economy. A credit crunch lowers investment and consumption, which results in declining aggregate demand and additionally contributes to the deflationary spiral. Expectations hypothesis Since economic mainstream turned to the new neoclassical synthesis, expectations are a central element of macroeconomic models. According to Peter Temin, Barry Wigmore, Gauti B. Eggertsson and Christina Romer, the key to recovery and to ending the Great Depression was brought about by a successful management of public expectations. The thesis is based on the observation that after years of deflation and a very severe recession important economic indicators turned positive in March 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. Consumer prices turned from deflation to a mild inflation, industrial production bottomed out in March 1933, and investment doubled in 1933 with a turnaround in March 1933. There were no monetary forces to explain that turnaround. Money supply was still falling and short-term interest rates remained close to zero. Before March 1933, people expected further deflation and a recession so that even interest rates at zero did not stimulate investment. But when Roosevelt announced major regime changes, people began to expect inflation and an economic expansion. With these positive expectations, interest rates at zero began to stimulate investment just as they were expected to do. Roosevelt's fiscal and monetary policy regime change helped make his policy objectives credible. The expectation of higher future income and higher future inflation stimulated demand and investment. The analysis suggests that the elimination of the policy dogmas of the gold standard, a balanced budget in times of crisis and small government led endogenously to a large shift in expectation that accounts for about 70–80% of the recovery of output and prices from 1933 to 1937. If the regime change had not happened and the Hoover policy had continued, the economy would have continued its free fall in 1933, and output would have been 30% lower in 1937 than in 1933. The recession of 1937–1938, which slowed down economic recovery from the Great Depression, is explained by fears of the population that the moderate tightening of the monetary and fiscal policy in 1937 were first steps to a restoration of the pre-1933 policy regime. Common position There is common consensus among economists today that the government and the central bank should work to keep the interconnected macroeconomic aggregates of gross domestic product and money supply on a stable growth path. When threatened by expectations of a depression, central banks should expand liquidity in the banking system and the government should cut taxes and accelerate spending in order to prevent a collapse in money supply and aggregate demand. At the beginning of the Great Depression, most economists believed in Say's law and the equilibrating powers of the market, and failed to understand the severity of the Depression. Outright leave-it-alone liquidationism was a common position, and was universally held by Austrian School economists. The liquidationist position held that a depression worked to liquidate failed businesses and investments that had been made obsolete by technological development – releasing factors of production (capital and labor) to be redeployed in other more productive sectors of the dynamic economy. They argued that even if self-adjustment of the economy caused mass bankruptcies, it was still the best course. Economists like Barry Eichengreen and J. Bradford DeLong note that President Herbert Hoover tried to keep the federal budget balanced until 1932, when he lost confidence in his Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and replaced him. An increasingly common view among economic historians is that the adherence of many Federal Reserve policymakers to the liquidationist position led to disastrous consequences. Unlike what liquidationists expected, a large proportion of the capital stock was not redeployed but vanished during the first years of the Great Depression. According to a study by Olivier Blanchard and Lawrence Summers, the recession caused a drop of net capital accumulation to pre-1924 levels by 1933. Milton Friedman called leave-it-alone liquidationism "dangerous nonsense". He wrote: I think the Austrian business-cycle theory has done the world a great deal of harm. If you go back to the 1930s, which is a key point, here you had the Austrians sitting in London, Hayek and Lionel Robbins, and saying you just have to let the bottom drop out of the world. You've just got to let it cure itself. You can't do anything about it. You will only make it worse. ... I think by encouraging that kind of do-nothing policy both in Britain and in the United States, they did harm. Heterodox theories Austrian School Two prominent theorists in the Austrian School on the Great Depression include Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and American economist Murray Rothbard, who wrote America's Great Depression (1963). In their view, much like the monetarists, the Federal Reserve (created in 1913) shoulders much of the blame; however, unlike the Monetarists, they argue that the key cause of the Depression was the expansion of the money supply in the 1920s which led to an unsustainable credit-driven boom. In the Austrian view, it was this inflation of the money supply that led to an unsustainable boom in both asset prices (stocks and bonds) and capital goods. Therefore, by the time the Federal Reserve tightened in 1928 it was far too late to prevent an economic contraction. In February 1929 Hayek published a paper predicting the Federal Reserve's actions would lead to a crisis starting in the stock and credit markets. According to Rothbard, the government support for failed enterprises and efforts to keep wages above their market values actually prolonged the Depression. Unlike Rothbard, after 1970 Hayek believed that the Federal Reserve had further contributed to the problems of the Depression by permitting the money supply to shrink during the earliest years of the Depression. However, during the Depression (in 1932 and in 1934) Hayek had criticized both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England for not taking a more contractionary stance. Hans Sennholz argued that most boom and busts that plagued the American economy, such as those in 1819–20, 1839–1843, 1857–1860, 1873–1878, 1893–1897, and 1920–21, were generated by government creating a boom through easy money and credit, which was soon followed by the inevitable bust. Ludwig von Mises wrote in the 1930s: "Credit expansion cannot increase the supply of real goods. It merely brings about a rearrangement. It diverts capital investment away from the course prescribed by the state of economic wealth and market conditions. It causes production to pursue paths which it would not follow unless the economy were to acquire an increase in material goods. As a result, the upswing lacks a solid base. It is not real prosperity. It is illusory prosperity. It did not develop from an increase in economic wealth, i.e. the accumulation of savings made available for productive investment. Rather, it arose because the credit expansion created the illusion of such an increase. Sooner or later, it must become apparent that this economic situation is built on sand." Marxist Marxists generally argue that the Great Depression was the result of the inherent instability of the capitalist mode of production. According to Forbes, "The idea that capitalism caused the Great Depression was widely held among intellectuals and the general public for many decades." Inequality Two economists of the 1920s, Waddill Catchings and William Trufant Foster, popularized a theory that influenced many policy makers, including Herbert Hoover, Henry A. Wallace, Paul Douglas, and Marriner Eccles. It held the economy produced more than it consumed, because the consumers did not have enough income. Thus the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920s caused the Great Depression. According to this view, the root cause of the Great Depression was a global over-investment in heavy industry capacity compared to wages and earnings from independent businesses, such as farms. The proposed solution was for the government to pump money into the consumers' pockets. That is, it must redistribute purchasing power, maintaining the industrial base, and re-inflating prices and wages to force as much of the inflationary increase in purchasing power into consumer spending. The economy was overbuilt, and new factories were not needed. Foster and Catchings recommended federal and state governments to start large construction projects, a program followed by Hoover and Roosevelt. Productivity shock It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the [productivity, output, and employment] trends we are describing are long-time trends and were thoroughly evident before 1929. These trends are in nowise the result of the present depression, nor are they the result of the World War. On the contrary, the present depression is a collapse resulting from these long-term trends. The first three decades of the 20th century saw economic output surge with electrification, mass production, and motorized farm machinery, and because of the rapid growth in productivity there was a lot of excess production capacity and the work week was being reduced. The dramatic rise in productivity of major industries in the U.S. and the effects of productivity on output, wages and the workweek are discussed by Spurgeon Bell in his book Productivity, Wages, and National Income (1940). Effects by country The majority of countries set up relief programs and most underwent some sort of political upheaval, pushing them to the right. Many of the countries in Europe and Latin America that were democracies saw their democratic governments overthrown by some form of dictatorship or authoritarian rule, most famously in Germany in 1933. The Dominion of Newfoundland abandoned its autonomy within the British Empire, becoming the only region ever to voluntarily relinquish democracy. There too were severe impacts across the Middle East and North Africa, including economic decline which led to social unrest. Argentina Decline in foreign trade hit Argentina hard. The British decision to stop importing Argentine beef led to the signing of the Roca–Runciman Treaty, which preserved a quota in exchange for significant concessions to British exports. By 1935 the economy had recovered to 1929 levels and the same year the Central Bank of Argentina was formed. However the Great Depression was the last time when Argentina was one of the richer countries of the world as it stopped growing in the decades thereafter and became underdeveloped. Australia Australia's dependence on agricultural and industrial exports meant it was one of the hardest-hit developed countries. Falling export demand and commodity prices placed massive downward pressures on wages. Unemployment reached a record high of 29% in 1932, with incidents of civil unrest becoming common. After 1932, an increase in wool and meat prices led to a gradual recovery. Canada Harshly affected by both the global economic downturn and the Dust Bowl, Canadian industrial production had by 1932 fallen to only 58% of its 1929 figure, the second-lowest level in the world after the United States, and well behind countries such as Britain, which fell to only 83% of the 1929 level. Total national income fell to 56% of the 1929 level, again worse than any country apart from the United States. Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933. Chile The League of Nations labeled Chile the country hardest hit by the Great Depression because 80% of government revenue came from exports of copper and nitrates, which were in low demand. Chile initially felt the impact of the Great Depression in 1930, when GDP dropped 14%, mining income declined 27%, and export earnings fell 28%. By 1932, GDP had shrunk to less than half of what it had been in 1929, exacting a terrible toll in unemployment and business failures. Influenced profoundly by the Great Depression, many government leaders promoted the development of local industry in an effort to insulate the economy from future external shocks. After six years of government austerity measures, which succeeded in reestablishing Chile's creditworthiness, Chileans elected to office during the 1938–58 period a succession of center and left-of-center governments interested in promoting economic growth through government intervention. Prompted in part by the devastating 1939 Chillán earthquake, the Popular Front government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda created the Production Development Corporation (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción, CORFO) to encourage with subsidies and direct investments an ambitious program of import substitution industrialization. Consequently, as in other Latin American countries, protectionism became an entrenched aspect of the Chilean economy. China China was largely unaffected by the Depression, mainly by having stuck to the Silver standard. However, the U.S. silver purchase act of 1934 created an intolerable demand on China's silver coins, and so, in the end, the silver standard was officially abandoned in 1935 in favor of the four Chinese national banks' "legal note" issues. China and the British colony of Hong Kong, which followed suit in this regard in September 1935, would be the last to abandon the silver standard. In addition, the Nationalist Government also acted energetically to modernize the legal and penal systems, stabilize prices, amortize debts, reform the banking and currency systems, build railroads and highways, improve public health facilities, legislate against traffic in narcotics and augment industrial and agricultural production. On 3 November 1935, the government instituted the fiat currency (fapi) reform, immediately stabilizing prices and also raising revenues for the government. European African colonies The sharp fall in commodity prices, and the steep decline in exports, hurt the economies of the European colonies in Africa and Asia. The agricultural sector was especially hard hit. For example, sisal had recently become a major export crop in Kenya and Tanganyika. During the depression, it suffered severely from low prices and marketing problems that affected all colonial commodities in Africa. Sisal producers established centralized controls for the export of their fibre. There was widespread unemployment and hardship among peasants, labourers, colonial auxiliaries, and artisans. The budgets of colonial governments were cut, which forced the reduction in ongoing infrastructure projects, such as the building and upgrading of roads, ports and communications. The budget cuts delayed the schedule for creating systems of higher education. The depression severely hurt the export-based Belgian Congo economy because of the drop in international demand for raw materials and for agricultural products. For example, the price of peanuts fell from 125 to 25 centimes. In some areas, as in the Katanga mining region, employment declined by 70%. In the country as a whole, the wage labour force decreased by 72,000 and many men returned to their villages. In Leopoldville, the population decreased by 33%, because of this labour migration. Political protests were not common. However, there was a growing demand that the paternalistic claims be honored by colonial governments to respond vigorously. The theme was that economic reforms were more urgently needed than political reforms. French West Africa launched an extensive program of educational reform in which "rural schools" designed to modernize agriculture would stem the flow of under-employed farm workers to cities where unemployment was high. Students were trained in traditional arts, crafts, and farming techniques and were then expected to return to their own villages and towns. France The crisis affected France a bit later than other countries, hitting hard around 1931. While the 1920s grew at the very strong rate of 4.43% per year, the 1930s rate fell to only 0.63%. The depression was relatively mild: unemployment peaked under 5%, the fall in production was at most 20% below the 1929 output; there was no banking crisis. However, the depression had drastic effects on the local economy, and partly explains the February 6, 1934 riots and even more the formation of the Popular Front, led by SFIO socialist leader Léon Blum, which won the elections in 1936. Ultra-nationalist groups also saw increased popularity, although democracy prevailed into World War II. France's relatively high degree of self-sufficiency meant the damage was considerably less than in neighbouring states like Germany. Germany The Great Depression hit Germany hard. The impact of the Wall Street Crash forced American banks to end the new loans that had been funding the repayments under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil with the rise in violence of national socialist and communist movements, as well as with investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in the first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations. This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An international conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August a standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures became more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. In 1932, 90% of German reparation payments were cancelled (in the 1950s, Germany repaid all its missed reparations debts). Widespread unemployment reached 25% as every sector was hurt. The government did not increase government spending to deal with Germany's growing crisis, as they were afraid that a high-spending policy could lead to a return of the hyperinflation that had affected Germany in 1923. Germany's Weimar Republic was hit hard by the depression, as American loans to help rebuild the German economy now stopped. The unemployment rate reached nearly 30% in 1932. The German political landscape was dramatically altered, leading to Adolf Hitler's rise to power. The Nazi Party rose from being peripheral to winning 18.3% of the vote in the September 1930 election and the Communist Party also made gains, while moderate forces like the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic Party and the People's Party lost seats. The next two years were marked by increased street violence between Nazis and Communists, while governments under President Paul von Hindenburg increasingly relied on rule by decree, bypassing the Reichstag. Hitler ran for the Presidency in 1932, and while he lost to the incumbent Hindenburg in the election, it marked a point during which both Nazi Party and the Communist parties rose in the years following the crash to altogether possess a Reichstag majority following the general election in July 1932. Although the Nazis lost seats in November 1932 election, they remained the largest party, and Hitler was appointed as Chancellor the following January. The government formation deal was designed to give Hitler's conservative coalition partners many checks on his power, but over the next few months, the Nazis manoeuvred to consolidate a single-party dictatorship. Hitler followed an autarky economic policy, creating a network of client states and economic allies in central Europe and Latin America. By cutting wages and taking control of labor unions, plus public works spending, unemployment fell significantly by 1935. Large-scale military spending played a major role in the recovery. The policies had the effect of driving up the cost of food imports and depleting foreign currency reserves, leading to economic impasse by 1936. Nazi Germany faced a choice of either reversing course or pressing ahead with rearmament and autarky. Hitler chose the latter route, which according to Ian Kershaw "could only be partially accomplished without territorial expansion" and therefore war. Greece The reverberations of the Great Depression hit Greece in 1932. The Bank of Greece tried to adopt deflationary policies to stave off the crises that were going on in other countries, but these largely failed. For a brief period, the drachma was pegged to the U.S. dollar, but this was unsustainable given the country's large trade deficit and the only long-term effects of this were Greece's foreign exchange reserves being almost totally wiped out in 1932. Remittances from abroad declined sharply and the value of the drachma began to plummet from 77 drachmas to the dollar in March 1931 to 111 drachmas to the dollar in April 1931. This was especially harmful to Greece as the country relied on imports from the UK, France, and the Middle East for many necessities. Greece went off the gold standard in April 1932 and declared a moratorium on all interest payments. The country also adopted protectionist policies such as import quotas, which several European countries did during the period. Protectionist policies coupled with a weak drachma, stifling imports, allowed the Greek industry to expand during the Great Depression. In 1939, the Greek industrial output was 179% that of 1928. These industries were for the most part "built on sand" as one report of the Bank of Greece put it, as without massive protection they would not have been able to survive. Despite the global depression, Greece managed to suffer comparatively little, averaging an average growth rate of 3.5% from 1932 to 1939. The dictatorial regime of Ioannis Metaxas took over the Greek government in 1936, and economic growth was strong in the years leading up to the Second World War. Iceland Icelandic post-World War I prosperity came to an end with the outbreak of the Great Depression. The Depression hit Iceland hard as the value of exports plummeted. The total value of Icelandic exports fell from 74 million kronur in 1929 to 48 million in 1932, and was not to rise again to the pre-1930 level until after 1939. Government interference in the economy increased: "Imports were regulated, trade with foreign currency was monopolized by state-owned banks, and loan capital was largely distributed by state-regulated funds". Due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which cut Iceland's exports of saltfish by half, the Depression lasted in Iceland until the outbreak of World War II (when prices for fish exports soared). India How much India was affected has been hotly debated. Historians have argued that the Great Depression slowed long-term industrial development. Apart from two sectors—jute and coal—the economy was little affected. However, there were major negative impacts on the jute industry, as world demand fell and prices plunged. Otherwise, conditions were fairly stable. Local markets in agriculture and small-scale industry showed modest gains. Ireland Frank Barry and Mary E. Daly have argued that: Ireland was a largely agrarian economy, trading almost exclusively with the UK, at the time of the Great Depression. Beef and dairy products comprised the bulk of exports, and Ireland fared well relative to many other commodity producers, particularly in the early years of the depression. Italy The Great Depression hit Italy very hard. As industries came close to failure they were bought out by the banks in a largely illusionary bail-out—the assets used to fund the purchases were largely worthless. This led to a financial crisis peaking in 1932 and major government intervention. The Industrial Reconstruction Institute (IRI) was formed in January 1933 and took control of the bank-owned companies, suddenly giving Italy the largest state-owned industrial sector in Europe (excluding the USSR). IRI did rather well with its new responsibilities—restructuring, modernising and rationalising as much as it could. It was a significant factor in post-1945 development. But it took the Italian economy until 1935 to recover the manufacturing levels of 1930—a position that was only 60% better than that of 1913. Japan The Great Depression did not strongly affect Japan. The Japanese economy shrank by 8% during 1929–31. Japan's Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo was the first to implement what have come to be identified as Keynesian economic policies: first, by large fiscal stimulus involving deficit spending; and second, by devaluing the currency. Takahashi used the Bank of Japan to sterilize the deficit spending and minimize resulting inflationary pressures. Econometric studies have identified the fiscal stimulus as especially effective. The devaluation of the currency had an immediate effect. Japanese textiles began to displace British textiles in export markets. The deficit spending proved to be most profound and went into the purchase of munitions for the armed forces. By 1933, Japan was already out of the depression. By 1934, Takahashi realized that the economy was in danger of overheating, and to avoid inflation, moved to reduce the deficit spending that went towards armaments and munitions. This resulted in a strong and swift negative reaction from nationalists, especially those in the army, culminating in his assassination in the course of the February 26 Incident. This had a chilling effect on all civilian bureaucrats in the Japanese government. From 1934, the military's dominance of the government continued to grow. Instead of reducing deficit spending, the government introduced price controls and rationing schemes that reduced, but did not eliminate inflation, which remained a problem until the end of World War II. The deficit spending had a transformative effect on Japan. Japan's industrial production doubled during the 1930s. Further, in 1929 the list of the largest firms in Japan was dominated by light industries, especially textile companies (many of Japan's automakers, such as Toyota, have their roots in the textile industry). By 1940 light industry had been displaced by heavy industry as the largest firms inside the Japanese economy. Latin America Because of high levels of U.S. investment in Latin American economies, they were severely damaged by the Depression. Within the region, Chile, Bolivia and Peru were particularly badly affected. Before the 1929 crisis, links between the world economy and Latin American economies had been established through American and British investment in Latin American exports to the world. As a result, Latin Americans export industries felt the depression quickly. World prices for commodities such as wheat, coffee and copper plunged. Exports from all of Latin America to the U.S. fell in value from $1.2 billion in 1929 to $335 million in 1933, rising to $660 million in 1940. But on the other hand, the depression led the area governments to develop new local industries and expand consumption and production. Following the example of the New Deal, governments in the area approved regulations and created or improved welfare institutions that helped millions of new industrial workers to achieve a better standard of living. Netherlands From roughly 1931 to 1937, the Netherlands suffered a deep and exceptionally long depression. This depression was partly caused by the after-effects of the American stock-market crash of 1929, and partly by internal factors in the Netherlands. Government policy, especially the very late dropping of the Gold Standard, played a role in prolonging the depression. The Great Depression in the Netherlands led to some political instability and riots, and can be linked to the rise of the Dutch fascist political party NSB. The depression in the Netherlands eased off somewhat at the end of 1936, when the government finally dropped the Gold Standard, but real economic stability did not return until after World War II. New Zealand New Zealand was especially vulnerable to worldwide depression, as it relied almost entirely on agricultural exports to the United Kingdom for its economy. The drop in exports led to a lack of disposable income from the farmers, who were the mainstay of the local economy. Jobs disappeared and wages plummeted, leaving people desperate and charities unable to cope. Work relief schemes were the only government support available to the unemployed, the rate of which by the early 1930s was officially around 15%, but unofficially nearly twice that level (official figures excluded Māori and women). In 1932, riots occurred among the unemployed in three of the country's main cities (Auckland, Dunedin, and Wellington). Many were arrested or injured through the tough official handling of these riots by police and volunteer "special constables". Persia In Iran, then known as the Imperial State of Persia, the Great Depression had negative impacts on its exports. In 1933 a new concession was signed with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Poland Poland was affected by the Great Depression longer and stronger than other countries due to inadequate economic response of the government and the pre-existing economic circumstances of the country. At that time, Poland was under the authoritarian rule of Sanacja, whose leader, Józef Piłsudski, was opposed to leaving the gold standard until his death in 1935. As a result, Poland was unable to perform a more active monetary and budget policy. Additionally, Poland was a relatively young country that emerged merely 10 years earlier after being partitioned between German, Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires for over a century. Prior to independence, the Russian part exported 91% of its exports to Russia proper, while the German part exported 68% to Germany proper. After independence, these markets were largely lost, as Russia transformed into USSR that was mostly a closed economy, and Germany was in a tariff war with Poland throughout the 1920s. Industrial production fell significantly: in 1932 hard coal production was down 27% compared to 1928, steel production was down 61%, and iron ore production noted an 89% decrease. On the other hand, electrotechnical, leather, and paper industries noted marginal increases in production output. Overall, industrial production decreased by 41%. A distinct feature of the Great Depression in Poland was the de-concentration of industry, as larger conglomerates were less flexible and paid their workers more than smaller ones. Unemployment rate rose significantly (up to 43%) while nominal wages fell by 51% in 1933 and 56% in 1934, relative to 1928. However, real wages fell less due to the government's policy of decreasing cost of living, particularly food expenditures (food prices were down by 65% in 1935 compared to 1928 price levels). Material conditions deprivation led to strikes, some of them violent or violently pacified – like in Sanok (March of the Hungry in Sanok 6 March 1930), Lesko county (Lesko uprising 21 June – 9 July 1932) and Zawiercie (Bloody Friday (1930) 18 April 1930). To adapt to the crisis, Polish government employed deflation methods such as high interest rates, credit limits and budget austerity to keep a fixed exchange rate with currencies tied to the gold standard. Only in late 1932 did the government effect a plan to fight the economic crisis. Part of the plan was mass public works scheme, employing up to 100,000 people in 1935. After Piłsudski's death, in 1936 the gold standard regime was relaxed, and launching the development of the Central Industrial Region kicked off the economy, to over 10% annual growth rate in the 1936–1938 period. Portugal Already under the rule of a dictatorial junta, the Ditadura Nacional, Portugal suffered no turbulent political effects of the Depression, although António de Oliveira Salazar, already appointed Minister of Finance in 1928 greatly expanded his powers and in 1932 rose to Prime Minister of Portugal to found the Estado Novo, an authoritarian corporatist dictatorship. With the budget balanced in 1929, the effects of the depression were relaxed through harsh measures towards budget balance and autarky, causing social discontent but stability and, eventually, an impressive economic growth. Puerto Rico In the years immediately preceding the depression, negative developments in the island and world economies perpetuated an unsustainable cycle of subsistence for many Puerto Rican workers. The 1920s brought a dramatic drop in Puerto Rico's two primary exports, raw sugar and coffee, due to a devastating hurricane in 1928 and the plummeting demand from global markets in the latter half of the decade. 1930 unemployment on the island was roughly 36% and by 1933 Puerto Rico's per capita income dropped 30% (by comparison, unemployment in the United States in 1930 was approximately 8% reaching a height of 25% in 1933). To provide relief and economic reform, the United States government and Puerto Rican politicians such as Carlos Chardon and Luis Muñoz Marín created and administered first the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA) 1933 and then in 1935, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA). Romania Romania was also affected by the Great Depression. South Africa As world trade slumped, demand for South African agricultural and mineral exports fell drastically. The Carnegie Commission on Poor Whites had concluded in 1931 that nearly one-third of Afrikaners lived as paupers. The social discomfort caused by the depression was a contributing factor in the 1933 split between the "gesuiwerde" (purified) and "smelter" (fusionist) factions within the National Party and the National Party's subsequent fusion with the South African Party. Unemployment programs were begun that focused primarily on the white population. Soviet Union The Soviet Union was the only major socialist state in the world and had very little international trade. Its economy was not tied to the rest of the world and was mostly unaffected by the Great Depression. At the time of the Depression, the Soviet economy was growing steadily, fuelled by intensive investment in heavy industry. The apparent economic success of the Soviet Union at a time when the capitalist world was in crisis led many Western intellectuals to view the Soviet system favorably. Jennifer Burns wrote: As the Great Depression ground on and unemployment soared, intellectuals began unfavorably comparing their faltering capitalist economy to Russian Communism. Karl Marx had predicted that capitalism would fall under the weight of its own contradictions, and now with the economic crisis gripping the West, his predictions seem to be coming true. By contrast Russia seemed an emblematic modern nation, making the staggering leap from a feudal past to an industrial future with ease. The early years of the Great Depression caused mass immigration to the Soviet Union, including 10,000 to 15,000 from Finland and thousands more from Poland, Sweden, Germany, and other nearby countries. The Kremlin was at first happy to help these immigrants settle, believing that they were victims of capitalism who had come to help the Soviet cause. However, by 1933, the worst of the Depression had come to an end in many countries, and word had been received that illegal migrants to the Soviet Union were being sent to Siberia. These factors caused immigration to the Soviet Union to slow significantly, and roughly a tenth of Finnish migrants returned to Finland, either legally or illegally. Spain Spain had a relatively isolated economy, with high protective tariffs and was not one of the main countries affected by the Depression. The banking system held up well, as did agriculture. By far the most serious negative impact came after 1936 from the heavy destruction of infrastructure and manpower by the civil war, 1936–39. Many talented workers were forced into permanent exile. By staying neutral in the Second World War, and selling to both sides, the economy avoided further disasters. Sweden By the 1930s, Sweden had what America's Life magazine called in 1938 the "world's highest standard of living". Sweden was also the first country worldwide to recover completely from the Great Depression. Taking place amid a short-lived government and a less-than-a-decade old Swedish democracy, events such as those surrounding Ivar Kreuger (who eventually committed suicide) remain infamous in Swedish history. The Social Democrats under Per Albin Hansson formed their first long-lived government in 1932 based on strong interventionist and welfare state policies, monopolizing the office of Prime Minister until 1976 with the sole and short-lived exception of Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp's "summer cabinet" in 1936. During forty years of hegemony, it was the most successful political party in the history of Western liberal democracy. Thailand In Thailand, then known as the Kingdom of Siam, the Great Depression contributed to the end of the absolute monarchy of King Rama VII in the Siamese revolution of 1932. Turkey Turkey was badly affected by the Great Depression and it came at a time when the state was still reforming its economic policy following the end of the Ottoman era. Exports of grapes, which held an important share, were down considerably which had already started beforehand due to drought. United Kingdom The World Depression broke at a time when the United Kingdom had still not fully recovered from the effects of the First World War more than a decade earlier. The country was driven off the gold standard in 1931. The world financial crisis began to overwhelm Britain in 1931; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse the British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits by 20%. The attack on welfare was totally unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition "National Government". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with a small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard, and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. The effects on the northern industrial areas of Britain were immediate and devastating, as demand for traditional industrial products collapsed. By the end of 1930 unemployment had more than doubled from 1 million to 2.5 million (20% of the insured workforce), and exports had fallen in value by 50%. In 1933, 30% of Glaswegians were unemployed due to the severe decline in heavy industry. In some towns and cities in the north east, unemployment reached as high as 70% as shipbuilding fell by 90%. The National Hunger March of September–October 1932 was the largest of a series of hunger marches in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. About 200,000 unemployed men were sent to the work camps, which continued in operation until 1939. In the less industrial Midlands and Southern England, the effects were short-lived and the later 1930s were a prosperous time. Growth in modern manufacture of electrical goods and a boom in the motor car industry was helped by a growing southern population and an expanding middle class. Agriculture also saw a boom during this period. United States Hoover's first measures to combat the depression were based on encouraging businesses not to reduce their workforce or cut wages but businesses had little choice: wages were reduced, workers were laid off, and investments postponed. In June 1930, Congress approved the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act which raised tariffs on thousands of imported items. The intent of the Act was to encourage the purchase of American-made products by increasing the cost of imported goods, while raising revenue for the federal government and protecting farmers. Most countries that traded with the U.S. increased tariffs on American-made goods in retaliation, reducing international trade, and worsening the Depression. In 1931, Hoover urged bankers to set up the National Credit Corporation so that big banks could help failing banks survive. But bankers were reluctant to invest in failing banks, and the National Credit Corporation did almost nothing to address the problem. By 1932, unemployment had reached 23.6%, peaking in early 1933 at 25%. Those releasing from prison during this period had an especially difficult time finding employment given the stigma of their criminal records, which often led to recidivism out of economic desperation. Drought persisted in the agricultural heartland, businesses and families defaulted on record numbers of loans, and more than 5,000 banks had failed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found themselves homeless, and began congregating in shanty towns – dubbed "Hoovervilles" – that began to appear across the country. In response, President Hoover and Congress approved the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, to spur new home construction, and reduce foreclosures. The final attempt of the Hoover Administration to stimulate the economy was the passage of the Emergency Relief and Construction Act (ERA) which included funds for public works programs such as dams and the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was a Federal agency with the authority to lend up to $2 billion to rescue banks and restore confidence in financial institutions. But $2 billion was not enough to save all the banks, and bank runs and bank failures continued. Quarter by quarter the economy went downhill, as prices, profits and employment fell, leading to the political realignment in 1932 that brought to power Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, drought and erosion combined to cause the Dust Bowl, shifting hundreds of thousands of displaced persons off their farms in the Midwest. From his inauguration onward, Roosevelt argued that restructuring of the economy would be needed to prevent another depression or avoid prolonging the current one. New Deal programs sought to stimulate demand and provide work and relief for the impoverished through increased government spending and the institution of financial reforms. During a "bank holiday" that lasted five days, the Emergency Banking Act was signed into law. It provided for a system of reopening sound banks under Treasury supervision, with federal loans available if needed. The Securities Act of 1933 comprehensively regulated the securities industry. This was followed by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 which created the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although amended, key provisions of both Acts are still in force. Federal insurance of bank deposits was provided by the FDIC, and the Glass–Steagall Act. The Agricultural Adjustment Act provided incentives to cut farm production in order to raise farming prices. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) made a number of sweeping changes to the American economy. It forced businesses to work with government to set price codes through the NRA to fight deflationary "cut-throat competition" by the setting of minimum prices and wages, labor standards, and competitive conditions in all industries. It encouraged unions that would raise wages, to increase the purchasing power of the working class. The NRA was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1935. These reforms, together with several other relief and recovery measures, are called the First New Deal. Economic stimulus was attempted through a new alphabet soup of agencies set up in 1933 and 1934 and previously extant agencies such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. By 1935, the "Second New Deal" added Social Security (which was later considerably extended through the Fair Deal), a jobs program for the unemployed (the Works Progress Administration, WPA) and, through the National Labor Relations Board, a strong stimulus to the growth of labor unions. In 1929, federal expenditures constituted only 3% of the GDP. The national debt as a proportion of GNP rose under Hoover from 20% to 40%. Roosevelt kept it at 40% until the war began, when it soared to 128%. By 1936, the main economic indicators had regained the levels of the late 1920s, except for unemployment, which remained high at 11%, although this was considerably lower than the 25% unemployment rate seen in 1933. In the spring of 1937, American industrial production exceeded that of 1929 and remained level until June 1937. In June 1937, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and increased taxation in an attempt to balance the federal budget. The American economy then took a sharp downturn, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production fell almost 30 per cent within a few months and production of durable goods fell even faster. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938, rising from 5 million to more than 12 million in early 1938. Manufacturing output fell by 37% from the 1937 peak and was back to 1934 levels. Producers reduced their expenditures on durable goods, and inventories declined, but personal income was only 15% lower than it had been at the peak in 1937. As unemployment rose, consumers' expenditures declined, leading to further cutbacks in production. By May 1938 retail sales began to increase, employment improved, and industrial production turned up after June 1938. After the recovery from the Recession of 1937–38, conservatives were able to form a bipartisan conservative coalition to stop further expansion of the New Deal and, when unemployment dropped to 2% in the early 1940s, they abolished WPA, CCC and the PWA relief programs. Social Security remained in place. Between 1933 and 1939, federal expenditure tripled, and Roosevelt's critics charged that he was turning America into a socialist state. The Great Depression was a main factor in the implementation of social democracy and planned economies in European countries after World War II (see Marshall Plan). Keynesianism generally remained the most influential economic school in the United States and in parts of Europe until the periods between the 1970s and the 1980s, when Milton Friedman and other neoliberal economists formulated and propagated the newly created theories of neoliberalism and incorporated them into the Chicago School of Economics as an alternative approach to the study of economics. Neoliberalism went on to challenge the dominance of the Keynesian school of Economics in the mainstream academia and policy-making in the United States, having reached its peak in popularity in the election of the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. Literature The Great Depression has been the subject of much writing, as authors have sought to evaluate an era that caused both financial and emotional trauma. Perhaps the most noteworthy and famous novel written on the subject is The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the work, and in 1962 was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers who are forced from their home as drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agricultural industry occur during the Great Depression. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is another important novella about a journey during the Great Depression. Additionally, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the Great Depression. Margaret Atwood's Booker prize-winning The Blind Assassin is likewise set in the Great Depression, centering on a privileged socialite's love affair with a Marxist revolutionary. The era spurred the resurgence of social realism, practiced by many who started their writing careers on relief programs, especially the Federal Writers' Project in the U.S. Nonfiction works from this time also capture important themes. The 1933 memoir Prison Days and Nights by Victor Folke Nelson provides insight into criminal justice ramifications of the Great Depression, especially in regard to patterns of recidivism due to lack of economic opportunity. A number of works for younger audiences are also set during the Great Depression, among them the Kit Kittredge series of American Girl books written by Valerie Tripp and illustrated by Walter Rane, released to tie in with the dolls and playsets sold by the company. The stories, which take place during the early to mid 1930s in Cincinnati, focuses on the changes brought by the Depression to the titular character's family and how the Kittredges dealt with it. A theatrical adaptation of the series entitled Kit Kittredge: An American Girl was later released in 2008 to positive reviews. Similarly, Christmas After All, part of the Dear America series of books for older girls, take place in 1930s Indianapolis; while Kit Kittredge is told in a third-person viewpoint, Christmas After All is in the form of a fictional journal as told by the protagonist Minnie Swift as she recounts her experiences during the era, especially when her family takes in an orphan cousin from Texas. Naming The term "The Great Depression" is most frequently attributed to British economist Lionel Robbins, whose 1934 book The Great Depression is credited with formalizing the phrase, though Hoover is widely credited with popularizing the term, informally referring to the downturn as a depression, with such uses as "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement" (December 1930, Message to Congress), and "I need not recount to you that the world is passing through a great depression" (1931). The term "depression" to refer to an economic downturn dates to the 19th century, when it was used by varied Americans and British politicians and economists. The first major American economic crisis, the Panic of 1819, was described by then-president James Monroe as "a depression", and the most recent economic crisis, the Depression of 1920–21, had been referred to as a "depression" by then-president Calvin Coolidge. Financial crises were traditionally referred to as "panics", most recently the major Panic of 1907, and the minor Panic of 1910–11, though the 1929 crisis was called "The Crash", and the term "panic" has since fallen out of use. At the time of the Great Depression, the term "The Great Depression" was already used to refer to the period 1873–96 (in the United Kingdom), or more narrowly 1873–79 (in the United States), which has retroactively been renamed the Long Depression. Other "great depressions" The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the breakdown of economic ties which followed, led to a severe economic crisis and catastrophic fall in the standards of living in the 1990s in post-Soviet states and the former Eastern Bloc, which was even worse than the Great Depression. Even before Russia's financial crisis of 1998, Russia's GDP was half of what it had been in the early 1990s. Comparison with the Great Recession The worldwide economic decline after 2008 has been compared to the 1930s. The causes of the Great Recession seem similar to the Great Depression, but significant differences exist. The then-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, had extensively studied the Great Depression as part of his doctoral work at MIT, and implemented policies to manipulate the money supply and interest rates in ways that were not done in the 1930s. Bernanke's policies will undoubtedly be analyzed and scrutinized in the years to come, as economists debate the wisdom of his choices. In 2011, one journalist contrasted the Great Depression of the 1930s as opposed to the late-2000s recession. 1928 and 1929 were the times in the 20th century that the wealth gap reached such skewed extremes; half the unemployed had been out of work for over six months, something that was not repeated until the late-2000s recession. 2007 and 2008 eventually saw the world reach new levels of wealth gap inequality that rivalled the years of 1928 and 1929. See also General References Further reading Global Brendon, Piers. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s (2000) comprehensive global economic and political history; 816pp Davis, Joseph S. The World Between the Wars, 1919–39: An Economist's View (1974) Garraty, John A. The Great Depression: An Inquiry into the causes, course, and Consequences of the Worldwide Depression of the Nineteen-Thirties, as Seen by Contemporaries and in Light of History (1986) online Garside, W.R. ed. Capitalism in crisis: International responses to the Great Depression (1993), essays by experts Grossman, Mark. Encyclopedia of the Interwar Years: From 1919 to 1939 (2000). 400 pp. worldwide coverage Hall Thomas E. and J. David Ferguson. The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic Policies (1998) Hodson, H.V. Slump and Recovery, 1929–37: A Survey of World Economic Affairs (Oxford UP, 1938). online Kehoe, Timothy J. and Edward C. Prescott. Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century (2007) League Of Nations. World Economic Survey 1935–1936 (1936) online Rees, Goronwy. The great slump: capitalism in crisis, 1929–33 (1970) online, Marxist. Rothermund, Dietmar. The Global Impact of the Great Depression (1996) Woytinsky, Wladimir. The Social Consequences Of The Economic Depression (International Labour Office, 1936). Statistics of major economies; not online. Europe Aldcroft, Derek H. "Economic Growth in Britain in the Inter-War Years: A Reassessment." Economic History Review, 20#2, 1967, pp. 311–26. online Ambrosius, G. and W. Hibbard, A Social and Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe (1989) Broadberry, S. N. The British Economy between the Wars (Basil Blackwell 1986) Feinstein. Charles H. The European Economy between the Wars (1997) James, Harold. The German slump : politics and economics, 1924–1936 (1986) online Kaiser, David E. Economic diplomacy and the origins of the Second World War: Germany, Britain, France and Eastern Europe, 1930–1939 (1980) Konrad, Helmut and Wolfgang Maderthaner, eds. Routes Into the Abyss: Coping With Crises in the 1930s Archived 24 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine (Berghahn Books, 2013), 224 pp. Compares political crises in Germany, Italy, Austria, and Spain with those in Sweden, Japan, China, India, Turkey, Brazil, and the United States. Psalidopoulos, Michael, ed. The Great Depression in Europe: Economic Thought and Policy in a National Context (Athens: Alpha Bank, 2012). ISBN 978-960-99793-6-8. Chapters by economic historians cover Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. table of contents Archived 13 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine Tipton, F. and R. Aldrich, An Economic and Social History of Europe, 1890–1939 (1987) United States and Canada Dickstein, Morris. Dancing in the dark : a cultural history of the Great Depression (2009) online Helping the Homeless Man: Activities and Facilities of the Central Registry for Homeless Single Men. ca. 1933–1934. 18 photographic prints (1 box). At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Great Crash, 1929 (1954), popular online Goldston, Robert, The Great Depression: The United States in the Thirties (1968) McNeese, Tim, and Richard Jensen. The Great Depression 1929–1938 (Discovering U.S. History) (2010) online, for middle schools. Mitchell, Broadus. Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal, 1929–1941 (1947), 462 pp., thorough coverage of the U.S. economy online Reis, Ronald A. The Great Depression and the New Deal : America's economy in crisis (2011) for secondary schools. online Safarian, A. E. The Canadian economy in the Great Depression (2009) online Washington Women’s Heritage Project Records: Ethel P. Storey Oral History Interview (13/20). 1985. 4 sound cassettes; papers. Storey discusses the Great Depression and hardships of early life, abortion, childbearing and motherhood. At the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. Young, William H. The Great Depression in America : a cultural encyclopedia (2007) online Other areas Brown, Ian. The Economies of Africa and Asia in the Inter-war Depression (1989) Drinot, Paulo, and Alan Knight, eds. The Great Depression in Latin America (2014) excerpt Latham, Anthony, and John Heaton, The Depression and the Developing World, 1914–1939 (1981). Shiroyama, Tomoko. China during the Great Depression : market, state, and the world economy, 1929–1937 (2008) online Focus on economic theory or econometrics Bernanke, Ben. "The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative Approach" Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking (1995) 27#1 pp 1–28 online Eichengreen, Barry J. Hall of mirrors : the Great Depression, the great recession, and the uses-and misuses-of history (2015), leading economist compares economic decline after 1929 and after 2008. online Eichengreen, Barry. Golden Fetters: The gold standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939. 1992. Eichengreen, Barry, and Marc Flandreau. The Gold Standard in Theory and History (1997) Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (1963), monetarist interpretation (heavily statistical) Glasner, David, ed. Business Cycles and Depressions (Routledge, 1997), 800 pp. Excerpt Grinin, L., Korotayev, A. and Tausch A. eds. Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (2016). Haberler, Gottfried. The World Economy, money, and the great depression 1919–1939 (1976) Kehoe, Timothy J. and Edward C. Prescott, eds. Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century (2007), essays by economists on the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy and on tariffs; statistical Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (3rd ed. 2013) online Madsen, Jakob B. "Trade Barriers and the Collapse of World Trade during the Great Depression", Southern Economic Journal, (2001) 67#4 pp. 848–68 online at JSTOR. Markwell, Donald. John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace (Oxford University Press, 2006). Mundell, R.A. "A Reconsideration of the Twentieth Century", American Economic Review 90#3 (2000), pp. 327–40 online version Richardson, H. W. "The Basis of Economic Recovery in the Nineteen-Thirties: A Review and a New Interpretation." Economic History Review, 15#2 (1962), pp. 344–63. online; focus on United Kingdom. Romer, Christina D. "The Nation in Depression", Journal of Economic Perspectives (1993) 7#2 pp. 19–39 in JSTOR Archived 3 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine, statistical comparison of U.S. and other countries

Japan_Academy_Film_Prize

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Academy_Film_Prize

The Japan Academy Film Prize (日本アカデミー賞, Nippon Akademii-shou), often called the Japan Academy Prize, the Japan Academy Awards, and the Japanese Academy Awards, is a series of awards given annually since 1978 by the Japan Academy Film Prize Association (日本アカデミー賞協会, Nippon Akademii-shou Kyoukai) for excellence in Japanese film. Award categories are similar to the Academy Awards. Venue Since 1998, the venue is regularly held at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa of Prince Hotels in Takanawa, Minato-ku, Tokyo. Admission tickets for this award ceremony are also sold to regular customers. As of 2015, there is a charge of 40,000 Yen which includes a French cuisine course dinner named after the award ceremony. Spectators are expected to attend in semi-formal attire. Elementary school students and younger are not permitted. Award The winners are selected from the recipients of the Award for Excellence. The award statue of the winner measures 27 cm × 11 cm × 11 cm (10.7 in × 4.4 in × 4.4 in). The recipients of the Award for Excellence receive a smaller statue. Categories Award winners References External links Official website - (in Japanese) Awards of the Japanese Academy - Overview on IMDb

Daisaku_Kimura

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisaku_Kimura

Daisaku Kimura (木村 大作, Kimura Daisaku) is a Japanese film director and cinematographer. Overviews He won the award for best director at the 33rd Japan Academy Prize for Mt. Tsurugidake. Filmography Submersion of Japan (1973) Mt. Tsurugidake Climbing to Spring (2014) Samurai's Promise (2018) Honours Person of Cultural Merit (2020) References External links Daisaku Kimura at IMDb

Submersion_of_Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submersion_of_Japan

Submersion of Japan (日本沈没, Nihon Chinbotsu, lit. "Japan Sinks") is a film directed by Shiro Moritani in 1973. It is based on the 1973 novel Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu. The film stars Keiju Kobayashi, Hiroshi Fujioka and Ayumi Ishida. Synopsis Thirty million years ago, the country of Japan was part of the continent of Asia, and has since split off into its own archipelago. Another landmass shift is about to occur. In the present day, geophysicist Dr. Tadokoro and Onodera Toshio take the submarine Wadatsumi-1 to the Ogasawara Islands, in order to investigate tremors in the seafloor. They discover that the land mass of the Japanese islands is collapsing into the Japan Trench. Afterward, Onodera is introduced to Abe Reiko, and the two become lovers. Relaxing on the beach, they witness an eruption of Mt. Amagi. A meeting of government officials, including Prime Minister Yamamoto, focuses on assessing the disaster. Dr. Tadokoro warns that more eruptions and earthquakes are imminent, but his claims are rejected as alarmist. He later meets with a mysterious wealthy man named Mr. Watari, who agrees to fund the doctor's research expeditions. With this funding, he develops a course of action to address a nationwide earthquake disaster. During a meeting to secure a research submarine from France, the volcano Kirishima erupts. Onodera leaves his job as a submarine pilot to help Dr. Tadokoro full-time. Further research verifies that the Japanese archipelago will be pulled into the ocean. This is immediately followed by a massive earthquake in Tokyo causing immense damage and loss of life. Three months later, Tokyo is slowly recovering. The Prime Minister, who lost his wife in the earthquake, works closely with Mr. Watari and Dr. Tadokoro's team. Their assessment is that another even larger earthquake is on the horizon. Dr. Tadokoro and his team meet with Mr. Watari at his secluded mountainside home. The doctor reveals his two-phase plan: D1-investigating seismic activity in the Japan Trench, and D2-an evacuation of the Japanese islands. The Prime Minister is negotiating with countries to accept refugees. Mr. Watari describes three options for Plan D2. One is the formation of a new country, a second is immigration and integration into other countries, and a third is a non-response that means passive acceptance of Japan's fate. Onodera, drunk and agonizing over the public's ignorance of the impending disaster, meets Abe Reiko for the first time since the Tokyo earthquake. The Japanese Meteorological Agency reveals devastating news; the original two-year timeline for Japan's sinking is inaccurate, shrinking to just 10 months. Immigration negotiations are sped up, though countries such as South Korea, China and Taiwan are refusing to participate. Shipping and air transport production are increased, and a full announcement of Japan’s fate is released to the public nationwide. Onodera plans to marry Reiko and meet her in Geneva, but they are separated when a new earthquake triggers an eruption of Mt. Fuji. A United Nations summit discusses possible locations for Japan's population. In two months, 2.8 million Japanese have successfully evacuated; the low number frustrates Prime Minister Yamamoto. Japan's sinking accelerates, with the Kii Peninsula and Shikoku submerged. The United States, China and the Soviet Union agree to accept large numbers of refugees, but evacuation estimates only increase to eight million per month. The Sanriku coast, Tohoku district, Kyushu, Hokkaido and Okinawa are submerged. Sixty-three million Japanese remain on the archipelago, 57% of the original population. Eleven days before Japan is expected to completely sink, Onodera is shown engaged in rescue efforts, while hoping to reunite with Reiko. Prime Minister Yamamoto later announces a cessation of all JSDF rescue operations. Mr. Watari, on his deathbed, has a final meeting with Dr. Tadokoro and the Prime Minister. The doctor states that he will remain in Japan until the end, and expresses his confidence in the Prime Minister's leadership ability with the Japanese people's uncertain future. A helicopter takes the Prime Minister to safety. A final view from space shows that all of Japan has sunk into the ocean. Cast Author Sakyo Komatsu has an uncredited cameo role in a scene where Onodera and Yoshimura have a meeting. Release Submersion of Japan was released in Japan on 29 December 1973 where it was distributed by Toho. American version Roger Corman bought the U.S. rights to the film for his New World Pictures. He cut out a great deal of footage, added new sequences directed by Andrew Meyer and starring Lorne Greene as an ambassador at the United Nations, and released it as Tidal Wave in May 1975. The American version of the film's new cast members also included Rhonda Leigh Hopkins, John Fukioka, Marvin Miller, Susan Sennett, Ralph James, Phil Roth, Cliff Pellow, and Joe Dante. New World additionally released an uncut subtitled format as Submersion of Japan. Box office The film was the highest-grossing film in Japan in 1973 and 1974. The film grossed more than twice of the second-highest-grossing film of the year, The Human Revolution. The film earned ¥4,468,680,000 ($14 million) in Japan. It surpassed The Godfather as the highest-grossing film in Japan until overtaken in December 1974 by The Exorcist. The film was a big success at the United States box office. The film earned $3.5 million in the United States, for a combined total of $17,500,000 (equivalent to $120,112,444 in 2023) in Japan and the United States. References Sources Galbraith IV, Stuart (2008). The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1461673743. OCLC 852899281. External links Original Japanese cut of Japan Sinks Japan Sinks at IMDb Japanese Wikipedia

The_Godfather

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather

The Godfather is a 1972 American epic gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy, chronicling the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando) from 1945 to 1955. It focuses on the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss. Paramount Pictures obtained the rights to the novel for $80,000, before it gained popularity. Studio executives had trouble finding a director; the first few candidates turned down the position before Coppola signed on to direct the film but disagreement followed over casting several characters, in particular, Vito (Marlon Brando) and Michael (Al Pacino). Filming took place primarily in locations around New York City and Sicily, and it was completed ahead of schedule. The musical score was composed principally by Nino Rota, with additional pieces by Carmine Coppola. The Godfather premiered at the Loew's State Theatre on March 14, 1972, and was widely released in the United States on March 24, 1972. It was the highest-grossing film of 1972, and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever made, earning between $250 and $291 million at the box office. The film was acclaimed by critics and audiences, who praised its performances—particularly those of Brando and Pacino—direction, screenplay, story, cinematography, editing, score, and portrayal of the mafia. The Godfather launched the successful careers of Coppola, Pacino, and other relative newcomers in the cast and crew. At the 45th Academy Awards, the film won Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Puzo and Coppola). In addition, the seven other Oscar nominations included Pacino, Caan, and Duvall all for Best Supporting Actor, and Coppola for Best Director. The Godfather is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, as well as a landmark of the gangster genre. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and is ranked the second-greatest film in American cinema (behind Citizen Kane) by the American Film Institute. It was followed by sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). Pauline Kael wrote that "If ever there was a great example of how the best popular movies come out of a merger of commerce and art, The Godfather is it." Plot In 1945, the New York City Corleone family don, Vito Corleone, listens to requests during his daughter Connie's wedding to Carlo Rizzi. Vito's youngest son Michael, a Marine who has thus far stayed out of the family business, introduces his girlfriend, Kay Adams, to his family at the reception. Johnny Fontane, a popular singer and Vito's godson, seeks Vito's help in securing a movie role. Vito sends his consigliere, Tom Hagen, to persuade studio president Jack Woltz to offer Johnny the part. Woltz refuses Hagen's request at first, but soon complies after finding the severed head of his prized stud horse in his bed. As Christmas approaches, drug baron Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo asks Vito to invest in his narcotics business and for police protection. Vito declines, citing that involvement in narcotics would alienate his political connections. Suspicious of Sollozzo's partnership with the Tattaglia crime family, Vito sends his enforcer Luca Brasi to the Tattaglias on an espionage mission. Brasi is garroted to death during the initial meeting. Later, enforcers gun down Vito and coerce Hagen into a meeting. With Vito's first-born Sonny now in command, Sollozzo pressures Hagen to persuade Sonny to accept the narcotics deal. Vito survives the shooting and is visited in the hospital by Michael, who finds him unprotected after NYPD officers on Sollozzo's payroll clear out Vito's guards. Michael thwarts the attempt on his father's life but is beaten by corrupt police captain Mark McCluskey. After the attempted hit at the hospital, Sonny retaliates with a hit on Bruno Tattaglia. Sollozzo and McCluskey request to meet with Michael and settle the dispute. Michael feigns interest and agrees to meet, but hatches a plan with Sonny and Corleone capo Clemenza to kill them and go into hiding. Michael meets Sollozzo and McCluskey at a Bronx restaurant; after retrieving a handgun planted in the bathroom by Clemenza, he shoots both men dead. Despite a clampdown by the authorities for the killing of a police captain, the Five Families erupt in open warfare. Michael takes refuge in Sicily and Fredo, Vito's second son, is sheltered by Moe Greene in Las Vegas. In Sicily, Michael meets and marries a local woman, Apollonia. Sonny publicly attacks and threatens Carlo for physically abusing Connie. When he abuses her again, Sonny speeds to their home but is ambushed and murdered by gangsters at a highway toll booth. Apollonia is killed shortly thereafter by a car bomb intended for Michael. Devastated by Sonny's death and tired of war, Vito sets a meeting with the Five Families. He assures them that he will withdraw his opposition to their narcotics business and forgo avenging Sonny's murder. His safety guaranteed, Michael returns home to enter the family business and marry Kay. Kay gives birth to two children in the early 1950s. With his father nearing the end of his life and Fredo not suited to lead, Michael assumes the position of head of the Corleone family. Vito reveals to Michael that it was Don Barzini who ordered the hit on Sonny and warns him that Barzini would try to kill him at a meeting organized by a traitorous Corleone capo. With Vito's support, Michael relegates Hagen to managing operations in Las Vegas as he is not a "wartime consigliere". Michael travels to Las Vegas to buy out Greene's stake in the family's casinos and is dismayed to see that Fredo is more loyal to Greene than to his own family. In 1955, Vito dies of a heart attack while playing with Michael's son Anthony. At Vito's funeral, Tessio asks Michael to meet with Barzini, signaling his betrayal. The meeting is set for the same day as the baptism of Connie's baby. While Michael stands at the altar as the child's godfather, Corleone hitmen murder the dons of the Five Families, in addition to Greene for not selling his hotel and Tessio for betraying Michael. Michael extracts Carlo's confession for his involvement in Sonny's murder. He assures Carlo that he is being exiled, not murdered. However, Clemenza strangles Carlo in a car moments after his confession. Connie confronts Michael about his involvement in Carlo's death while Kay is in the room. Kay asks Michael if he ordered Carlo's death and is relieved when he denies responsibility. As she leaves, capos enter the office and pay reverence to Michael as "Don Corleone". Cast Other actors playing smaller roles in the Sicilian sequence are Simonetta Stefanelli as Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone, Angelo Infanti as Fabrizio, Corrado Gaipa as Don Tommasino, Franco Citti as Calò and Saro Urzì as Vitelli. Production Development The film is based on Mario Puzo's The Godfather, which remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks and sold over nine million copies in two years. Published in 1969, it became the best selling published work in history for several years. Burt Lancaster and Danny Thomas both expressed interest adapting the book. Paramount Pictures originally found out about Puzo's novel in 1967 when a literary scout for the company contacted then Paramount Vice President of Production Peter Bart about Puzo's unfinished sixty-page manuscript titled Mafia. Bart believed the work was "much beyond a Mafia story" and offered Puzo a $12,500 option for the work, with an option for $80,000 if the finished work were to be made into a film. Despite Puzo's agent telling him to turn down the offer, Puzo was desperate for money and accepted the deal. Paramount's Robert Evans relates that, when they met in early 1968, he offered Puzo the deal after the author confided in him that he urgently needed $10,000 to pay off gambling debts. In March 1967, Paramount announced that they backed Puzo's upcoming work in the hopes of making a film. In 1969, Paramount confirmed their intentions to make a film out of the novel for the price of $80,000, with aims to have the film released on Christmas Day in 1971. On March 23, 1970, Albert S. Ruddy was officially announced as the film's producer, in part because studio executives were impressed with his interview and because he was known for bringing his films in under budget. Direction Evans wanted the picture to be directed by an Italian American to make the film "ethnic to the core". Paramount's latest mafia movie, The Brotherhood, had done very poorly at the box office; Evans believed that the reason for its failure was its almost complete lack of cast members or creative personnel of Italian descent (the director Martin Ritt and star Kirk Douglas were not Italian). Sergio Leone was Paramount's first choice to direct the film. Leone turned down the option, in order to work on his own gangster film Once Upon a Time in America. Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer because he was not interested in the mafia. In addition, Peter Yates, Richard Brooks, Arthur Penn, Franklin J. Schaffner, Costa-Gavras, and Otto Preminger were all offered the position and declined. Evans' chief assistant Peter Bart suggested Francis Ford Coppola, as a director of Italian ancestry who would work for a low sum and budget after the poor performance of his latest film The Rain People. Coppola initially turned down the job because he found Puzo's novel sleazy and sensationalist, describing it as "pretty cheap stuff". At the time Coppola's studio, American Zoetrope, owed over $400,000 to Warner Bros. for budget overruns with the film THX 1138 and when coupled with his poor financial standing, along with advice from friends and family, Coppola reversed his initial decision and took the job. Coppola was officially announced as director of the film on September 28, 1970. Coppola agreed to receive $125,000 and six percent of the gross rentals. Coppola later found a deeper theme for the material and decided that the film should not be about organized crime but a family chronicle, a metaphor for capitalism in America. Coppola and Paramount Before The Godfather was in production, Paramount had been going through an unsuccessful period. In addition to the failure of The Brotherhood, other recent films that were produced or co-produced by Paramount had greatly exceeded their budgets: Darling Lili, Paint Your Wagon, and Waterloo. The budget for the film was originally $2.5 million but as the book grew in popularity Coppola argued for and ultimately received a larger budget. Paramount executives wanted the movie to be set in contemporary Kansas City and shot in the studio backlot in order to cut down on costs. Coppola objected and wanted to set the movie in the same time period as the novel, the 1940s and 1950s; Coppola's reasons included Michael Corleone's spell in the wartime Marine Corps, the emergence of corporate America, and America in the years after World War II. The novel was becoming increasingly successful and so Coppola's wishes were eventually granted. The studio heads subsequently let Coppola film on location in New York City and Sicily. Gulf+Western executive Charles Bluhdorn was frustrated with Coppola over the number of screen tests he had performed without finding a person to play the various roles. Production quickly fell behind because of Coppola's indecisiveness and conflicts with Paramount, which led to costs being around $40,000 per day. With costs rising, Paramount had the Vice President, Jack Ballard, keep a close eye on production expenses. While filming, Coppola stated that he felt he could be fired at any point as he knew Paramount executives were not happy with many of the decisions he had made. Coppola was aware that Evans had asked Elia Kazan to take over directing the film because he feared that Coppola was too inexperienced to cope with the increased size of the production. Coppola was also convinced that the film editor, Aram Avakian, and the assistant director, Steve Kestner, were conspiring to get him fired. Avakian complained to Evans that he could not edit the scenes correctly because Coppola was not shooting enough footage. Evans was satisfied with the footage being sent to the West Coast and authorized Coppola to fire them both. Coppola later explained, "Like the godfather, I fired people as a preemptory strike. The people who were angling the most to have me fired, I had fired." Brando threatened to quit if Coppola was fired. Paramount wanted The Godfather to appeal to a wide audience and threatened Coppola with a "violence coach" to make the film more exciting. Coppola added a few more violent scenes to keep the studio happy. The scene in which Connie smashes crockery after finding out Carlo has been cheating was added for this reason. Writing On April 14, 1970, it was revealed that Puzo was hired by Paramount for $100,000, along with a percentage of the film's profits, to work on the screenplay for the film. Working from the book, Coppola wanted to have the themes of culture, character, power, and family at the forefront of the film, whereas Puzo wanted to retain aspects from his novel and his initial draft of 150 pages was finished on August 10, 1970. After Coppola was hired as director, both Puzo and Coppola worked on the screenplay, but separately. Puzo worked on his draft in Los Angeles, while Coppola wrote his version in San Francisco. Coppola created a book where he tore pages out of Puzo's book and pasted them into his book. There, he made notes about each of the book's fifty scenes, which related to major themes prevalent in the scene, whether the scene should be included in the film, along with ideas and concepts that could be used when filming to make the film true to Italian culture. The two remained in contact while they wrote their respective screenplays and made decisions on what to include and what to remove for the final version. A second draft was completed on March 1, 1971, and was 173 pages long. The final screenplay was finished on March 29, 1971, and wound up being 163 pages long, 40 pages over what Paramount had asked for. When filming, Coppola referred to the notebook he had created over the final draft of the screenplay. Screenwriter Robert Towne did uncredited work on the script, particularly on the Pacino-Brando garden scene. Despite finishing the third draft, some scenes in the film were still not written yet and were written during production. The Italian-American Civil Rights League, led by mobster Joseph Colombo, maintained that the film emphasized stereotypes about Italian-Americans, and wanted all uses of the words "mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" to be removed from the script. The league also requested that all the money earned from the premiere be donated to the league's fund to build a new hospital. Coppola claimed that Puzo's screenplay only contained two instances of the word "mafia" being used, while "Cosa Nostra" was not used at all. They were removed and replaced with other terms, without compromising the story. The league eventually gave its support for the script. Earlier, the windows of producer Albert S. Ruddy's car had been shot out with a note left on the dashboard which essentially said, "shut down the movie—or else." However, it was revealed in August 1971 that Ruddy personally met with Colombo family head Joseph Colombo, Columbo's son Anthony and about 1,500 delegates of Columbo's Italian-American Civil Rights League when he was developing the film, with the first meeting being held on February 25, 1971. Ruddy would also hold numerous meetings with Anthony Colombo. These meetings led to Ruddy agreeing to base the film on individuals and assuring that it would not defame or stereotype Italians. To further ensure trust, the words "Mafia", "Cosa Nostra" and all other Italian words were removed from the script. It was even reported that Anthony Colombo eventually made Ruddy an honorary captain of the League. Casting Puzo was first to show interest in having Marlon Brando portray Don Vito Corleone by sending a letter to Brando in which he stated Brando was the "only actor who can play the Godfather". Despite Puzo's wishes, the executives at Paramount were against having Brando, partly because of the poor performance of his recent films and also his short temper. Brando was hesitant about getting back into acting, but his secretary Alice Marchak persuaded him to audition. Coppola favored Brando or Laurence Olivier for the role, but Olivier's agent refused the role claiming Olivier was sick; however, Olivier went on to star in Sleuth later that year. Evans pushed for either Carlo Ponti or Ernest Borgnine to receive the part. Bluhdorn proposed Charles Bronson for the role. Others considered were George C. Scott, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and Orson Welles. Welles was Paramount's preferred choice for the role. After months of debate between Coppola and Paramount over Brando, the two finalists for the role were Borgnine and Brando; Paramount president Stanley Jaffe required Brando to perform a screen test. Coppola did not want to offend Brando and stated that he needed to test equipment in order to set up the screen test at Brando's California residence. For make-up, Brando stuck cotton balls in his cheeks, put shoe polish in his hair to darken it, and rolled his collar. Coppola placed Brando's audition tape in the middle of the videos of the audition tapes as the Paramount executives watched them. The executives were impressed with Brando's efforts and allowed Coppola to cast Brando for the role if Brando accepted a lower salary and put up a bond to ensure he would not cause any delays in production. Brando earned $1.6 million from a net participation deal. From the start of production, Coppola wanted Robert Duvall to play the part of Tom Hagen. After screen testing several other actors, Coppola eventually got his wish and Duvall was awarded the part. Al Martino, a then famed singer in nightclubs, was notified of the character Johnny Fontane by a friend who read the novel and felt Martino represented the character of Johnny Fontane. Martino then contacted producer Albert S. Ruddy, who gave him the part. However, Martino was stripped of the part after Coppola became director and then awarded the role to singer Vic Damone. According to Martino, after being stripped of the role, he went to Russell Bufalino, his godfather and a crime boss, who then arranged for news articles to be published that claimed Coppola was unaware of Ruddy giving Martino the part. Damone eventually dropped the role because he did not want to provoke the mob, in addition to the salary being too low. Ultimately, although Frank Sinatra threatened to bar him from Las Vegas if he took the role, the part of Johnny Fontane was given to Martino. Coppola cast Diane Keaton for the role of Kay Adams owing to her reputation for being eccentric. John Cazale was given the part of Fredo Corleone after Coppola saw him perform in an Off Broadway production. Gianni Russo was given the role of Carlo Rizzi after he was asked to perform a screen test in which he acted out the fight between Rizzi and Connie. Nearing the start of filming on March 29, Michael Corleone had yet to be cast. Paramount executives wanted a popular actor, either Warren Beatty or Robert Redford. Producer Robert Evans wanted Ryan O'Neal to receive the role, owing in part to his recent success in Love Story. Pacino was Coppola's favorite for the role as he could picture him roaming the Sicilian countryside, and wanted an unknown actor who looked like an Italian-American. However, Paramount executives found Pacino to be too short to play Michael. Dustin Hoffman, Martin Sheen, Dean Stockwell, and James Caan also auditioned. Keaton read with both Caan and Sheen. Burt Reynolds was offered the role of Michael, but Brando threatened to quit if Reynolds was hired. Reynolds declined the role. Jack Nicholson was also offered the role, but declined it as he felt that an Italian-American actor should play the role. Caan was well received by the Paramount executives and was given the part of Michael initially, while the role of Sonny Corleone was awarded to Carmine Caridi. Coppola still pushed for Pacino to play Michael after the fact and Evans eventually conceded, allowing Pacino to have the role of Michael as long as Caan played Sonny. Evans preferred Caan over Caridi because Caan was seven inches shorter than Caridi, which was much closer to Pacino's height. Despite agreeing to play Michael Corleone, Pacino was contracted to star in MGM's The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, but the two studios agreed on a settlement and Pacino was signed by Paramount three weeks before shooting began. Robert De Niro originally was given the part of Paulie Gatto. A spot in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight opened up after Al Pacino quit the project in favor of The Godfather, which led De Niro to audition for the role and leave The Godfather after receiving the part. De Niro also cast for the role of Sonny Corleone. After De Niro quit, Johnny Martino was given the role of Gatto. Coppola gave several roles in the film to family members. He gave his sister, Talia Shire, the role of Connie Corleone. His daughter Sofia, then an infant, appeared as Michael Francis Rizzi, Connie's and Carlo's newborn son. Carmine Coppola, his father, appeared in the film as an extra playing a piano during a scene. Coppola's wife, mother, and two sons all appeared as extras in the picture. Several smaller roles, like Luca Brasi, were cast after the filming had started. Ruddy's casting choices would earn him more approval from the Italian-American Civil Rights League, with Anthony Colombo reported to have made Ruddy a league captain after the meeting where the film's bit players and extras were chosen. Filming Before the filming began, the cast received a two-week period for rehearsal, which included a dinner where each actor and actress had to assume character for its duration. Filming was scheduled to begin on March 29, 1971, with the scene between Michael Corleone and Kay Adams as they leave Best & Co. in New York City after shopping for Christmas gifts. The weather on March 23 predicted snow flurries, which caused Ruddy to move the filming date forward; snow did not materialize and a snow machine was used. Principal filming in New York continued until July 2, 1971. Coppola asked for a three-week break before heading overseas to film in Sicily. Following the crew's departure for Sicily, Paramount announced that the release date would be moved to early 1972. Cinematographer Gordon Willis initially turned down the opportunity to film The Godfather because the production seemed "chaotic" to him. After Willis later accepted the offer, he and Coppola agreed to not use any modern filming devices, helicopters, or zoom lenses. Willis and Coppola chose to use a "tableau format" of filming to make it seem as if it was viewed like a painting. He made use of shadows and low light levels throughout the film to show psychological developments. Willis and Coppola agreed to interplay light and dark scenes throughout the film. Willis underexposed the film in order to create a "yellow tone". The scenes in Sicily were shot to display the countryside and "display a more romantic land," giving these scenes a "softer, more romantic" feel than the New York scenes. One of the film's most shocking moments involved an actual severed horse's head. The filming location for this scene is contested, as some sources indicate it was filmed at the Beverly Estate, while others indicate it was filmed at Sands Point Preserve on Long Island. Coppola received some criticism for the scene, although the head was obtained from a dog-food company from a horse that was to be killed regardless of the film. On June 22, the scene where Sonny is killed was shot on a runway at Mitchel Field in Uniondale, where three tollbooths were built, along with guard rails, and billboards to set the scene. Sonny's car was a 1941 Lincoln Continental with holes drilled in it to resemble bullet holes. The scene took three days to film and cost over $100,000. Coppola's request to film on location was observed; approximately 90 percent was shot in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, using over 120 distinct locations. Several scenes were filmed at Filmways in East Harlem. The remaining portions were filmed in California, or in Sicily. The scenes set in Las Vegas were not shot on location because there were insufficient funds. Savoca and Forza d'Agrò were the Sicilian towns featured in the film. The opening wedding scene was shot in a Staten Island neighborhood using almost 750 locals as extras. The house used as the Corleone household and the wedding location was at 110 Longfellow Avenue in the Todt Hill neighborhood of Staten Island. The wall around the Corleone compound was made from styrofoam. Scenes set in and around the Corleone olive oil business were filmed on Mott Street. After filming had ended on August 7, post-production efforts were focused on trimming the film to a manageable length. In addition, producers and director were still including and removing different scenes from the end product, along with trimming certain sequences. In September, the first rough cut of the film was viewed. Many of the scenes removed from the film were centered around Sonny, which did not advance the plot. By November, Coppola and Ruddy finished the semi-final cut. Debates over personnel involved with the final editing remained even 25 years after the release of the film. The film was shown to Paramount staff and exhibitors in late December 1971 and January 1972. Music Coppola hired Italian composer Nino Rota to create the underscore for the film, including "Love Theme from The Godfather". For the score, Rota was to relate to the situations and characters in the film. Rota synthesized new music for the film and took some parts from his 1958 Fortunella film score, in order to create an Italian feel and evoke the tragedy within the film. Paramount executive Evans found the score to be too "highbrow" and did not want to use it; however, it was used after Coppola managed to get Evans to agree. Coppola believed that Rota's musical piece gave the film even more of an Italian feel. Coppola's father, Carmine, created some additional music for the film, particularly the music played by the band during the opening wedding scene. Incidental music includes "C'è la luna mezzo mare" and Cherubino's aria, "Non so più cosa son", from Le Nozze di Figaro. There was a soundtrack released for the film in 1972 in vinyl form by Paramount Records, on CD in 1991 by Geffen Records, and digitally by Geffen on August 18, 2005. The album contains over 31 minutes of music that was used in the film, most of which was composed by Rota, along with a song from Coppola and one by Johnny Farrow and Marty Symes. AllMusic gave the album five out of five, with editor Zach Curd saying it is a "dark, looming, and elegant soundtrack". An editor for Filmtracks believed that Rota was successful in relating the music to the film's core aspects. Release Theatrical The world premiere for The Godfather took place at Loews's State Theatre in New York City on Tuesday, March 14, 1972, almost three months after the planned release date of Christmas Day in 1971, with profits from the premiere donated to The Boys Club of New York. Before the film premiered, the film had already made $15 million from advance rentals from over 400 theaters. The following day, the film opened in five theaters in New York (Loew's State I and II, Orpheum, Cine and Tower East). Next was the Imperial Theatre in Toronto on March 17 and then Los Angeles at two theaters on March 22. The Godfather was released on March 24, 1972, throughout the rest of the United States reaching 316 theaters five days later. Home media The television rights were sold for a record $10 million to NBC for one showing over two nights. The theatrical version of The Godfather debuted on American network television on NBC with only minor edits. The first half of the film aired on Saturday, November 16, 1974, and the second half two days later. The television airings attracted a large audience with an average Nielsen rating of 38.2 and audience share of 59% making it the eighth most-watched film on television, with the broadcast of the second half getting the third-best rating for a film on TV behind Airport and Love Story with a rating of 39.4 and 57% share. The broadcast helped generate anticipation for the upcoming sequel. The next year, Coppola created The Godfather Saga expressly for American television in a release that combined The Godfather and The Godfather Part II with unused footage from those two films in a chronological telling that toned down the violent, sexual, and profane material for its NBC debut on November 18, 1977. In 1981, Paramount released the Godfather Epic boxed set, which also told the story of the first two films in chronological order, again with additional scenes, but not redacted for broadcast sensibilities. The Godfather Trilogy was released in 1992, in which the films are fundamentally in chronological order. The Godfather Family: A Look Inside was a 73-minute documentary released in 1991. Directed by Jeff Warner, the film featured some behind the scenes content from all three films, interviews with the actors, and screen tests. The Godfather DVD Collection was released on October 9, 2001, in a package that contained all three films—each with a commentary track by Coppola—and a bonus disc containing The Godfather Family: A Look Inside. The DVD also held a Corleone family tree, a "Godfather" timeline, and footage of the Academy Award acceptance speeches. The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration During the film's original theatrical release, the original negatives were worn down due to the reel being printed so much to meet demand. In addition, the duplicate negative was lost in Paramount archives. In 2006 Coppola contacted Steven Spielberg—whose studio DreamWorks had recently been bought out by Paramount—about restoring The Godfather. Robert A. Harris was hired to oversee the restoration of The Godfather and its two sequels, with the film's cinematographer Willis participating in the restoration. Work began in November 2006 by repairing the negatives so they could go through a digital scanner to produce high-resolution 4K files. If a negative were damaged and discolored, work was done digitally to restore it to its original look. After a year and a half of working on the restoration, the project was complete. Paramount called the finished product The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration and released it to the public on September 23, 2008, on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Dave Kehr of The New York Times believed the restoration brought back the "golden glow of their original theatrical screenings". As a whole, the restoration of the film was well received by critics and Coppola. The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration contains several new special features that play in high definition, (including additional scenes, behind the scenes footage, etc.). Paramount Pictures restored and remastered The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (a re-edited cut of the third film) for a limited theatrical run and home media release on Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Godfather. The disc editions were released on March 22, 2022. Reception Box office The Godfather was a blockbuster, breaking many box office records to become the highest grossing film of 1972. The film's opening day gross from five theaters was $57,829 with ticket prices increased from $3 to $3.50. Prices in New York increased further at the weekend to $4, and the number of showings increased from four times a day to seven times a day. The film grossed $61,615 in Toronto for the weekend and $240,780 in New York, for an opening weekend gross of $302,395. The film grossed $454,000 for the week in New York and $115,000 in Toronto for a first week gross of $568,800, which made it number one at the U.S. box office for the week. In its first five days of national release, it grossed $6.8 million, taking its gross up to $7,397,164. A week later its gross had reached $17,291,705 with the one week gross of around $10 million being an industry record. It grossed another $8.7 million by April 9 to take its gross to $26,000,815. After 18 weeks at number one in the United States, the film had grossed $101 million, the fastest film to reach that milestone. Some news articles at the time proclaimed it was the first film to gross $100 million in North America, but such accounts are erroneous; this record belongs to The Sound of Music, released in 1965. It remained at number one in the US for another five weeks to bring its total to 23 consecutive weeks at number one before being unseated by Butterflies Are Free for one week before becoming number one for another three weeks. The film eventually earned $81.5 million in theatrical rentals in the US and Canada during its initial release, increasing its earnings to $85.7 million through a reissue in 1973, and including a limited re-release in 1997, it ultimately earned an equivalent exhibition gross of $135 million, with a production cost of $6.5 million. It displaced Gone with the Wind to claim the record as the top rentals earner, a position it would retain until the release of Jaws in 1975. The film repeated its native success overseas, earning in total an unprecedented $142 million in worldwide theatrical rentals, to become the highest net earner. Profits were so high for The Godfather that earnings for Gulf & Western Industries, Inc., which owned Paramount, jumped from 77 cents per share to $3.30 a share for the year, according to a Los Angeles Times article, dated December 13, 1972. Re-released eight more times since 1997, it has grossed between $250 million and $291 million in worldwide box office receipts, and adjusted for ticket price inflation in North America, ranks among the top 25 highest-grossing films. Critical response The Godfather has received overwhelming critical acclaim and is seen as one of the greatest and most influential films of all time, particularly of the gangster genre. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 151 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "One of Hollywood's greatest critical and commercial successes, The Godfather gets everything right; not only did the movie transcend expectations, it established new benchmarks for American cinema." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, has assigned the film a score of 100 out of 100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times praised Coppola's efforts to follow the storyline of the novel, the choice to set the film in the same time as the novel, and the film's ability to "absorb" the viewer over its three-hour run time. Ebert named The Godfather "The best film of 1972". The Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel gave the film four out of four, commenting that it was "very good". The Village Voice's Andrew Sarris believed Brando portrayed Vito Corleone well and that his character dominated each scene it appeared in, but felt Puzo and Coppola had the character of Michael Corleone too focused on revenge. In addition, Sarris stated that Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, and James Caan were good in their respective roles. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote "If ever there was a great example of how the best popular movies come out of a merger of commerce and art, The Godfather is it." Desson Howe of The Washington Post called the film a "jewel" and wrote that Coppola deserves most of the credit for the film. Writing for The New York Times, Vincent Canby felt that Coppola had created one of the "most brutal and moving chronicles of American life" and went on to say that it "transcends its immediate milieu and genre". Director Stanley Kubrick thought the film had the best cast ever and could be the best movie ever made. Director Steven Spielberg listed it among his favorite films. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote negatively of the film in a contemporary review, claiming that Pacino "rattles around in a part too demanding for him", while also criticizing Brando's make-up and Rota's score. Previous mafia films had looked at the gangs from the perspective of an outraged outsider. In contrast, The Godfather presents the gangster's perspective of the Mafia as a response to corrupt society. Although the Corleone family is presented as immensely rich and powerful, no scenes depict prostitution, gambling, loan sharking or other forms of racketeering. George De Stefano argues that the setting of a criminal counterculture allows for unapologetic gender stereotyping (such as when Vito tells a weepy Johnny Fontane to "act like a man") and is an important part of the film's appeal. Remarking on the fortieth anniversary of the film's release, film critic John Podhoretz praised The Godfather as "arguably the great American work of popular art" and "the summa of all great moviemaking before it". Two years before, Roger Ebert had written in his journal that it "comes closest to being a film everyone agrees ... is unquestionably great". Accolades The Godfather was nominated for seven awards at the 30th Golden Globe Awards: Best Picture – Drama, James Caan for Best Supporting Actor, Al Pacino and Marlon Brando for Best Actor – Drama, Best Score, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. When the winners were announced on January 28, 1973, the film had won the categories for: Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor – Drama (Brando), Best Original Score, and Best Picture – Drama. Rota's score was also nominated for Grammy Award for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture or TV Special at the 15th Grammy Awards. Rota was announced the winner of the category on March 3 at the Grammys' ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee. When the nominations for the 45th Academy Awards were revealed on February 12, 1973, The Godfather was nominated for eleven awards. The nominations were for: Best Picture, Best Costume Design, Marlon Brando for Best Actor, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola for Best Adapted Screenplay, Pacino, Caan, and Robert Duvall for Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Nino Rota for Best Original Score, Coppola for Best Director, and Best Sound. Upon further review of Rota's love theme from The Godfather, the academy found that Rota had used a similar score in Eduardo De Filippo's 1958 comedy Fortunella. This led to re-balloting, where members of the music branch chose from six films: The Godfather and the five films that had been on the shortlist for best original dramatic score but did not get nominated. John Addison's score for Sleuth won this new vote, and thus replaced Rota's score on the official list of nominees. Going into the awards ceremony, The Godfather was seen as the favorite to take home the most awards. From the nominations that The Godfather had remaining, it only won three of the Academy Awards: Best Actor for Brando, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. Brando, who did not attend the Golden Globes ceremony two months earlier, boycotted the Academy Awards ceremony and declined the Oscar, becoming the second actor to decline a Best Actor award after George C. Scott in 1971. Brando sent American Indian Rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place, to announce at the awards podium Brando's reasons for declining the award, which were based on his objection to the depiction of American Indians by Hollywood and television. Pacino also boycotted the ceremony; he was insulted at being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, when he had more screen time than his co-star and Best Actor-winner Brando, and thus should have received the nomination for Best Actor. The Godfather had five nominations for awards at the 26th British Academy Film Awards. The nominees were: Pacino for Most Promising Newcomer, Rota for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, Duvall for Best Supporting Actor, and Brando for Best Actor, the film's costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone for Best Costume Design. The only nomination to win was that of Rota. Recognition American Film Institute 1998 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – No. 3 2001 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – No. 11 2005 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." – No. 2 2006 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – No. 5 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 2 2008 AFI's 10 Top 10 – No. 1 Gangster Film Others 1990 Selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". 1992 The Godfather ranked 6th in Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time director's poll. 1998 Time Out conducted a poll and The Godfather was voted the best film of all time. The Village Voice ranked The Godfather at number 12 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. 1999 Entertainment Weekly named it the greatest film ever made. 2002 Sight & Sound polled film directors and they voted the film and its sequel as the second best film ever; the critics poll separately voted it fourth. 2002 The Godfather was ranked the second best film of all time by Film4, after Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. 2002 The film (along with The Godfather Part II) was voted at No. 39 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics. 2005 Named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by Time magazine (the selected films were not ranked). 2006 The Writers Guild of America, West agreed, voting it the number two in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays, after Casablanca. 2008 Voted in at No. 1 on Empire magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. 2008 Voted at No. 50 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine Cahiers du cinéma. 2009 The Godfather was ranked at No. 1 on Japanese film magazine kinema Junpo's Top 10 Non-Japanese Films of All Time list. 2010 The Guardian ranked the film 15th in its list of 25 greatest arthouse films. 2012 The Motion Picture Editors Guild listed The Godfather as the sixth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership. 2012 The film ranked at number seven on Sight & Sound directors' top ten poll. On the same list it was ranked at number twenty one by critics. 2014 The Godfather was voted the greatest film in a Hollywood Reporter poll of 2120 industry members, including every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in Hollywood in 2014. 2015 Second on the BBC's "100 Greatest American Films", voted by film critics from around the world. Cultural influence and legacy Although many films about gangsters preceded The Godfather, Coppola steeped his film in Italian immigrant culture, and his portrayal of mobsters as persons of considerable psychological depth and complexity was unprecedented. Coppola took it further with The Godfather Part II, and the success of those two films, critically, artistically and financially, was a catalyst for the production of numerous other depictions of Italian Americans as mobsters, including films such as Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and TV series such as David Chase's The Sopranos. A comprehensive study of Italian-American culture in film from 1914 to 2014 was conducted by the Italic Institute of America showing the influence of The Godfather. Over 81 percent of films, 430 films, featuring Italian Americans as mobsters (87 percent of which were fictional) had been produced since The Godfather, an average of 10 per year, while only 98 films were produced preceding The Godfather. The Godfather epic, encompassing the original trilogy and the additional footage that Coppola incorporated later, has been thoroughly integrated into American life. Together with a succession of mob-theme imitators, it has resulted in a stereotyped concept of Italian-American culture biased toward the criminal networks. The first film had the largest effect. Unlike any film before it, its portrayal of the many poor Italians who immigrated to the United States in the early decades of the 20th century is perhaps attributable to Coppola and expresses his understanding of their experience. The films explore the integration of fictional Italian-American criminals into American society. Though set in the period of mass Italian immigration to America, the film explores the specific family of the Corleones, who live outside the law. Although some critics have considered the Corleone story to portray some universal elements of immigration, other critics have suggested that it resulted in viewers overly associating organized crime with Italian-American culture. Produced in a period of intense national cynicism and self-criticism, the film struck a chord about the dual identities felt by many descendants of immigrants. The Godfather has been cited as an influence in an increase in Hollywood's negative portrayals of immigrant Italians, and was a recruiting tool for organized crime. The concept of a mafia "Godfather" was a creation of Mario Puzo, and the film resulted in this term being added to the common language. Don Vito Corleone's line, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse", was voted the second-most memorable line in cinema history in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute, in 2014. The concept was not unique to the film. French writer Honoré de Balzac, in his novel Le Père Goriot (1835), wrote that Vautrin told Eugène: "In that case I will make you an offer that no one would decline." An almost identical line was used in the John Wayne Western, Riders of Destiny (1933), where Forrest Taylor states, "I've made Denton an offer he can't refuse." In 2014, the film also was selected as the greatest film by 2,120 industry professionals in a Hollywood survey undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter. Gangsters reportedly responded enthusiastically to the film. Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the former underboss in the Gambino crime family, said: "I left the movie stunned ... I mean I floated out of the theater. Maybe it was fiction, but for me, then, that was our life. It was incredible. I remember talking to a multitude of guys, made guys, who felt exactly the same way." According to Anthony Fiato, after seeing the film, Patriarca crime family members Paulie Intiso and Nicky Giso altered their speech patterns to imitate that of Vito Corleone. Intiso was known to swear frequently and use poor grammar; but after seeing the movie, he began to improve his speech and philosophize more. Representation in other media The film has been referenced and parodied in various kinds of media. John Belushi appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch as Vito Corleone in a therapy session; he said of the Tattaglia Family, "Also, they shot my son Santino 56 times". In the television show The Sopranos, Silvio Dante's topless bar is named Bada Bing!, a phrase popularized by James Caan's character Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. In the animated television series The Simpsons, there have been many references to the film. For instance, in the season 3 episode "Lisa's Pony", Lisa wakes up to find a horse in her bed and starts screaming, a reference to Jack finding his prize racehorse's head in his bed. In the season 4 episode "Mr. Plow", Bart Simpson is pelted with snowballs in mimicry of Sonny's killing. The film's baptism sequence was parodied in "Fulgencio", the 13th episode of season 4 of the comedy series Modern Family, with Phil Dunphy standing in for Michael. The sequence also references the horse head scene when Phil's son Luke places a severed zebra head in the bed of a boy who had been making fun of him and had a fear of zebras. Phil also references Godfather lines when he tells his wife Claire, "Don't ask me about my business," and mentions an offer he can't refuse. The 2006 video game The Godfather is based upon this film and tells the story of Aldo Trapani, whose rise through the ranks of the Corleone family intersects with the plot of the film on numerous occasions. Duvall, Caan, and Brando supplied voiceovers and their likenesses, but Pacino did not. Francis Ford Coppola openly voiced his disapproval of the game. On April 28, 2022, a 10-episode drama series The Offer premiered on Paramount+, about the production told from the perspective of producer Ruddy. An episode of the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants entitled "The Goobfather" from the 13th season has many scenes that directly parody this film. The 2023 film Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, features a scene in which the characters watch The Godfather, with Ken, portrayed by Kingsley Ben-Adir, praising the film as a collective effort of Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Evans. A clip from The Godfather is also shown, showing Marlon Brando in the opening scene of the film. See also List of films set in Las Vegas Notes References Bibliography External links Official website The Godfather at IMDb The Godfather at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films The Godfather at Box Office Mojo The Godfather at Rotten Tomatoes The Godfather at Metacritic The Godfather essay by Michael Sragow on the National Film Registry website

Sailor_Moon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon

Sailor Moon (Japanese: 美少女戦士セーラームーン, Hepburn: Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn, originally translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon and later as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi from 1991 to 1997; the 60 individual chapters (later reorganized into 52), along with several side stories, were compiled in 18 volumes. The series follows the adventures of a schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino as she transforms into the eponymous character to search for a magical artifact, the "Legendary Silver Crystal" (「幻の銀水晶」, Maboroshi no Ginsuishō, lit. "Phantom Silver Crystal"). She leads a group of comrades, the Sailor Soldiers, called Sailor Guardians in later editions, as they battle against villains to prevent the theft of the Silver Crystal and the destruction of the Solar System. The manga was adapted into an anime series produced by Toei Animation and broadcast in Japan from 1992 to 1997. Toei also developed three animated feature films, a television special, and three short films based on the anime. A live-action television adaptation, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, aired from 2003 to 2004, and a second anime series, Sailor Moon Crystal, began simulcasting in 2014. The manga series was licensed for an English language release by Kodansha Comics in North America, and in Australia and New Zealand by Random House Australia. The entire anime series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release in North America and by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand. Since its release, Sailor Moon has received universal acclaim, with praise for its art, characterization, and humor. The manga has sold over 46 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series, as well as one of the best-selling shōjo manga series of all time. The franchise has also generated $2.5 billion in worldwide merchandise sales. Plot One day in Juban, Tokyo, a middle-school student named Usagi Tsukino befriends Luna, a talking black cat who gives her a magical brooch enabling her to transform into Sailor Moon: a guardian destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna and Usagi assemble a team of fellow Sailor Guardians to find their princess and the Silver Crystal. They encounter the studious Ami Mizuno, who awakens as Sailor Mercury; Rei Hino, a local Shinto shrine maiden who awakens as Sailor Mars; Makoto Kino, a tall and strong transfer student who awakens as Sailor Jupiter; and Minako Aino, a young aspiring idol who had awakened as Sailor Venus a few months prior, accompanied by her talking feline companion Artemis. Additionally, they befriend Mamoru Chiba, a high school student who assists them on occasion as Tuxedo Mask. In the first arc, the group battles the Dark Kingdom, those members attempt to find the Silver Crystal and free an imprisoned, evil entity called Queen Metaria. Usagi and her team discover that in their previous lives, they were members of the ancient Moon Kingdom in a period of time called the Silver Millennium. The Dark Kingdom waged war against them, destroying the Moon Kingdom. Its ruler Queen Serenity sent her daughter Princess Serenity, reincarnated as Usagi, along with her protectors the Sailor Guardians, their feline advisers Luna and Artemis, and the princess's true love Prince Endymion, who in turn was reborn as Mamoru. At the beginning of the second arc, the Sailor Guardians meet Usagi and Mamoru's future daughter Chibiusa, who arrives from a 30th-century version of Tokyo known as "Crystal Tokyo", which is ruled by Neo Queen Serenity, Usagi of the future and has been attacked by the group of villains known as the Black Moon Clan. During their journey, Sailor Moon and her friends meet Sailor Pluto, Guardian of the Time-Space Door. During the climactic battle of the arc, Sailor Pluto dies trying to save the sailor soldiers and Chibiusa was brainwashed by the enemy and turned into the Black Lady, but was eventually reformed and awakens as a Guardian herself—Sailor Chibi Moon. The third arc introduces car-racer Haruka Tenoh and violinist Michiru Kaioh, who appear as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, whose duty is to guard the Solar System against external threats. Physics student Setsuna Meioh, Sailor Pluto's reincarnation, joins Uranus and Neptune in their mission to kill a mysterious girl named Hotaru Tomoe, whom they identify as the Guardian of Destruction Sailor Saturn. However, when Saturn awakens she joins the final fight against the main antagonists of the arc, the Death Busters, sacrificing her life in the process. With her newly obtained powers as Super Sailor Moon, Usagi restores the Earth and Hotaru is reincarnated as a baby. The fourth arc explores the Sailor Guardians' dreams and nightmares when the villainous group Dead Moon Circus exploits the Guardians' deepest fears, invades Elysion (which hosts the Earth's Golden Kingdom), and captures its high priest Helios, who turned into a Pegasus and tried to ask Guardians for help. This storyline also addresses Mamoru's relevance as protector of the Earth and owner of the Golden Crystal, the sacred stone of the Golden Kingdom. Mamoru and all ten of the reunited Guardians combine their powers, enabling Usagi to transform into Eternal Sailor Moon and defeat Dead Moon's leader, Queen Nehelenia. In the final arc the Sailor Starlights from the Planet Kinmoku, their ruler Princess Kakyuu, and the mysterious little girl Chibi-Chibi join Usagi in her fight against Shadow Galactica, a group of both corrupted and false Sailor Guardians and led by Sailor Galaxia, who have been rampaging across the galaxy and killing other Sailor Guardians to steal their Star Seeds, Sailor Crystals—the essence of their lives. After Mamoru and all of the main Solar System Guardians are killed by Shadow Galactica, Usagi travels to the Galaxy Cauldron, the birthplace of all Star Seeds of the Milky Way, in an attempt to revive her loved ones and to confront Chaos, the source of all strife in the galaxy. Production Creation of Sailor Moon Naoko Takeuchi, after working on Nami Akimoto's 1991 manga Miracle Girls, redeveloped Sailor Moon from her 1991 manga serial Codename: Sailor V, which was first published on August 20, 1991, and featured Sailor Venus as the main protagonist. Takeuchi wanted to create a story with a theme about girls in outer space. While discussing with her editor Fumio Osano, he suggested the addition of Sailor fuku. When Codename: Sailor V was proposed for adaptation into an anime by Toei Animation, Takeuchi redeveloped the concept so Sailor Venus became a member of a team. The resulting manga series became a fusion of the popular magical girl genre and the Super Sentai series, of which Takeuchi was a fan. Recurring motifs include astronomy, astrology, gemology, Greco-Roman mythology, Japanese elemental themes,: 286  teen fashions, and schoolgirl antics. Takeuchi said discussions with Kodansha originally envisaged a single story arc; the storyline was developed in meetings a year before serialization began.: 93  After completing the arc, Toei and Kodansha asked Takeuchi to continue the series. She wrote four more story arcs, which were often published simultaneously with the five corresponding seasons of the anime adaptation. The anime ran one or two months behind the manga.: 93  As a result, the anime follows the storyline of the manga fairly closely, although there are deviations. Takeuchi later said because Toei's production staff were mostly male, she feels the anime has "a slight male perspective." Takeuchi later said she planned to kill off the protagonists, but Osano rejected the notion and said, "[Sailor Moon] is a shōjo manga!" When the anime adaptation was produced, the protagonists were killed in the final battle with the Dark Kingdom, although they were revived. Takeuchi resented that she was unable to do that in her version. Takeuchi also intended for the Sailor Moon anime adaptation to last for one season, but due to the immense popularity, Toei asked Takeuchi to continue the series. At first, she struggled to develop another storyline to extend the series. While discussing with Osano, he suggested the inclusion of Usagi's daughter from the future, Chibiusa. Westernization After the Sailor Moon anime was released in North America and dubbed in English, fans and academics alike noted that the dub had westernized Sailor Moon from how it had been released in Japan. In the 1995 English version of Sailor Moon, the westernization of the characters is seen in how a majority of the character names are changed from Japanese to English names. Sailor Moon's civilian name, Usagi Tsukino, is turned into Serena. The love interest of Sailor Moon, Mamoru Chiba, is turned into Darien Shields. Other examples of westernization (or at least Americanization) referenced by Sailor Moon's audience were things like flipping scenes of traffic to have cars drive on the right side of the road along with the English dub changing any conversations between characters that contained lesser-known (in the United States at the time) Japanese cultural references. According to Bandai America, the company in charge of Sailor Moon merchandise in the western hemisphere, the approach to advertising Sailor Moon was to make the show and super-heroine "'culturally appropriate' for the American market". Media Manga Written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi, Sailor Moon was serialized in the monthly manga anthology Nakayoshi from December 28, 1991, to February 3, 1997. The side-stories were serialized simultaneously in RunRun—another of Kodansha's manga magazines. The 52 individual chapters were published in 18 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from July 6, 1992, to April 4, 1997. In 2003, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 12 shinzōban volumes to coincide with the release of the live-action series. The manga was retitled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and included new cover art, and revised dialogue and illustrations. The ten individual short stories were also released in two volumes. In 2013, the chapters were once again re-released in 10 kanzenban volumes to commemorate the manga's 20th anniversary, which includes digitally remastered artwork, new covers and color artwork from its Nakayoshi run. The books have been enlarged from the typical Japanese manga size to A5. The short stories were republished in two volumes, with the order of the stories shuffled. Codename: Sailor V was also included in the third edition. The Sailor Moon manga was initially licensed for an English release by Mixx (later Tokyopop) in North America. The manga was first published as a serial in MixxZine beginning in 1997, but was later removed from the magazine and made into a separate, low print monthly comic to finish the first, second and third arcs. At the same time, the fourth and fifth arcs were printed in a secondary magazine called Smile. Pages from the Tokyopop version of the manga ran daily in the Japanimation Station, a service accessible to users of America Online. The series was later collected into a three-part graphic novel series spanning eighteen volumes, which were published from December 1, 1998, to September 18, 2001. In May 2005, Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga expired, and its edition went out of print. In 2011, Kodansha Comics announced they had acquired the license for the Sailor Moon manga and its lead-in series Codename: Sailor V in English. They published the twelve volumes of Sailor Moon simultaneously with the two-volume edition of Codename Sailor V from September 2011 to July 2013. The first of the two related short story volumes was published on September 10, 2013; the second was published on November 26, 2013. At Anime Expo 2017, Kodansha Comics announced plans to re-release Sailor Moon in an "Eternal Edition", featuring a new English translation, new cover artwork by Takeuchi, and color pages from the manga's original run, printed on extra-large premium paper. The first Eternal Edition volume was published on September 11, 2018; the tenth and final volume was published on October 20, 2020. On July 1, 2019, Kondasha Comics began releasing the Eternal Editions digitally, following an announcement the day before about the series being released digitally in ten different languages. In November 2020, Kodansha Comics announced plans to re-release the Sailor Moon manga again as part of their "Naoko Takeuchi Collection". The company described the new edition as a "more affordable, portable" version of the Eternal Edition. The first volume was published on April 5, 2022. Sailor Moon has also been licensed in other English-speaking countries. In the United Kingdom, the volumes are distributed by Turnaround Publisher Services. In Australia, the manga is distributed by Penguin Books Australia. The manga has been licensed in Russia and CIS for distribution by XL Media publishing company. The first volume was released in 2018. Anime series Overview Sailor Moon Toei Animation produced an anime television series based on the 52 manga chapters, also titled Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. Junichi Sato directed the first season, Kunihiko Ikuhara took over second through fourth season, and Takuya Igarashi directed the fifth and final season. The series premiered in Japan on TV Asahi on March 7, 1992, and ran for 200 episodes until its conclusion on February 8, 1997. Upon its release, the show quickly rose to be Toei Animation's highest ranked TV series. Most of the international versions, including the English adaptations, are titled Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon Crystal On July 6, 2012, Kodansha and Toei Animation announced that it would commence production of a new anime adaptation of Sailor Moon, called Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, for a simultaneous worldwide release in 2013 as part of the series's 20th anniversary celebrations, and stated that it would be a closer adaptation of the manga than the first anime. Crystal premiered on July 5, 2014, and new episodes would air on the first and third Saturdays of each month. New cast were announced, along with Kotono Mitsuishi reprising her role as Sailor Moon. The first two seasons were released together, covering their corresponding arcs of the manga (Dark Kingdom and Black Moon). A third season based on the Infinity arc on the manga premiered on Japanese television on April 4, 2016, known as Death Busters arc in this adaptation. Munehisa Sakai directed the first and second season, while Chiaki Kon directed the third season. Films and television specials Three animated theatrical feature films based on the original Sailor Moon series have been released in Japan: Sailor Moon R: The Movie in 1993, followed by Sailor Moon S: The Movie in 1994, and Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie in 1995. The films are side-stories that do not correlate with the timeline of the original series. A one-hour television special was aired on TV Asahi in Japan on April 8, 1995. Kunihiko Ikuhara directed the first film, while the latter two were directed by Hiroki Shibata. In 1997, an article in Variety stated that The Walt Disney Company was interested in originally acquiring the rights to Sailor Moon as a live action film to be directed by Stanley Tong & Geena Davis set to star as Queen Beryl, along with Winona Ryder & Elisabeth Shue planning to star in the film. After Disney put the project on turnaround, Universal Pictures acquired the film rights. In 2017, it was revealed that Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal anime's fourth season would be produced as a two-part theatrical anime film project, adapting the Dream arc from the manga. On June 30, 2019, it was announced that the title of the films will be Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie. The first film was originally to be released on September 11, 2020, but was postponed and released on January 8, 2021, and the second film was released on February 11, 2021. Chiaki Kon returned from Crystal's third season to direct the two films. In 2022, it was announced that a sequel to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie, covering the Stars arc of the manga would also be produced as a two-part theatrical anime film project, titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos The Movie. The two films are directed by Tomoya Takahashi, and was released on June 9 and 30, 2023. Companion books There have been numerous companion books to Sailor Moon. Kodansha released some of these books for each of the five story arcs, collectively called the Original Picture Collection. The books contain cover art, promotional material and other work by Takeuchi. Many of the drawings are accompanied by comments on the way she developed her ideas, created each picture and commentary on the anime interpretation of her story. Another picture collection, Volume Infinity, was released as a self-published, limited-edition artbook after the end of the series in 1997. This art book includes drawings by Takeuchi and her friends, her staff, and many of the voice actors who worked on the anime. In 1999, Kodansha published the Materials Collection; this contained development sketches and notes for nearly every character in the manga, and for some characters that never appeared. Each drawing includes notes by Takeuchi about costume pieces, the mentality of the characters and her feelings about them. It also includes timelines for the story arcs and for the real-life release of products and materials relating to the anime and manga. A short story, Parallel Sailor Moon is also featured, celebrating the year of the rabbit. Novels Sailor Moon was also adapted for publication as novels and released in 1998. The first book was written by Stuart J. Levy. The following novels were written by Lianne Sentar. Stage musicals In mid-1993, the first musical theater production based on Sailor Moon premiered, starring Anza Ohyama as Sailor Moon. Thirty such musicals in all have been produced, with one in pre-production. The shows' stories include anime-inspired plotlines and original material. Music from the series has been released on about 20 memorial albums. The popularity of the musicals has been cited as a reason behind the production of the live-action television series, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. During the original run musicals ran in the winter and summer of each year, with summer musicals staged at the Sunshine Theater in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo. In the winter, musicals toured to other large cities in Japan, including Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Shizuoka, Kanazawa, Sendai, Saga, Oita, Yamagata and Fukushima. The final incarnation of the first run, New Legend of Kaguya Island (Revised Edition) (新・かぐや島伝説 <改訂版>, Shin Kaguyashima Densetsu (Kaiteban)), went on stage in January 2005, following which, Bandai officially put the series on a hiatus. On June 2, 2013, Fumio Osano announced on his Twitter page that the Sailor Moon musicals would begin again in September 2013. The 20th anniversary show La Reconquista ran from September 13 to 23 at Shibuya's AiiA Theater Tokyo, with Satomi Ōkubo as Sailor Moon. Satomi Ōkubo reprised the role in the 2014 production Petite Étrangère which ran from August 21 to September 7, 2014, again at AiiA Theater Tokyo. Live-action film & series Cancelled Disney film adaptation During the 1990s, Disney was going to adapt Sailor Moon into a film under the Walt Disney Pictures banner but it was cancelled immediately. Unrealized American adaptation In 1993, Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, Bandai and Toon Makers, Inc. conceptualized their own version of Sailor Moon, which was half live-action and half Western-style animation. Toon Makers produced a 17-minute proof of concept pilot and a two-minute music video, both of which were directed by Rocky Solotoff, who also worked on the pilot's script. Renaissance-Atlantic presented the concept to Toei, but it was turned down as their concept would have cost significantly more than simply exporting and dubbing the anime adaptation. The companies' work is believed by Solotoff to have been handed over to Raymond Iacovacci, one of the producers on the project, who stored the pilot script and animation cels in a storage facility. The logo created for the pilot was kept for the English dub, and Bandai released a "Moon Cycle" as part of its merchandise for the show, based on vehicles designed for the pilot. The project was rediscovered in 1998 when the music video was screened at the Anime Expo convention in Los Angeles, where it was met with laughter by onlookers. A congoer recorded the music video and the audience response, which would later resurface on video sites such as YouTube. The pilot and the music video would go on to be discussed at conventions such as the 2011 Gen Con and 2012 Anime Expo. It was given the monikers of "Toon Makers' Sailor Moon" and "Saban Moon" despite having no connection with Saban Entertainment save for Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, which worked with the company on Power Rangers. The proof of concept video was widely considered to be lost media and director Solotoff reported that he was frequently contacted by people searching for the pilot. In 2012 multiple animation cels from the pilot, along with the script, surfaced on the internet after a storage locker, believed to be the one owned by Iacovacci, was sold. In 1998, Frank Ward, along with his company Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, tried to revive the idea of doing a live-action series based on Sailor Moon, this time called Team Angel, without the involvement of Toon Makers. A 2-minute reel was produced and sent to Bandai America, but was also rejected. In August 2022, the proof of concept was showcased for the first time on YouTube in a documentary by Ray Mona. Ray Mona obtained both the pilot and its music video, as well and its related materials, from the Library of Congress. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon In 2003, Toei Company produced a Japanese live-action Sailor Moon television series using the new translated English title of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Its 49 episodes were broadcast on Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting from October 4, 2003, to September 25, 2004. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon featured Miyuu Sawai as Usagi Tsukino, Rika Izumi (credited as Chisaki Hama) as Ami Mizuno, Keiko Kitagawa as Rei Hino, Mew Azama as Makoto Kino, Ayaka Komatsu as Minako Aino, Jouji Shibue as Mamoru Chiba, Keiko Han reprising her voice role as Luna from the original anime and Kappei Yamaguchi voicing Artemis. The series was an alternate retelling of the Dark Kingdom arc, adding a storyline different from that in the manga and first anime series, with original characters and new plot developments. In addition to the main episodes, two direct-to-video releases appeared after the show ended its television broadcast. "Special Act" is set four years after the main storyline ends, and shows the wedding of the two main characters. "Act Zero" is a prequel showing the origins of Sailor V and Tuxedo Mask. Video games The Sailor Moon franchise has spawned several video games across various genres and platforms. Most were made by Bandai and its subsidy Angel; others were produced by Banpresto. The early games were side-scrolling fighters; later ones were unique puzzle games, or versus fighting games. Another Story was a turn-based role-playing video game. The only Sailor Moon game produced outside Japan, 3VR New Media's The 3D Adventures of Sailor Moon, went on sale in North America in 1997, They were developed in association with DIC Entertainment, which held the rights to the game and the TV series. A video game called Sailor Moon: La Luna Splende (Sailor Moon: The Moon Shines) was released on March 16, 2011, for the Nintendo DS. Tabletop games The Dyskami Publishing Company released Sailor Moon Crystal Dice Challenge, created by James Ernest of Cheapass Games and based on the Button Men tabletop game in 2017, and Sailor Moon Crystal Truth or Bluff in 2018. Theme park attractions A Sailor Moon attraction, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Miracle 4-D, was announced for Universal Studios Japan. It featured Sailor Moon and the Inner Guardians arriving at the theme park, only to discover and stop the Youma's plan from stealing people's energies. The attraction ran from March 16 through July 24, 2018. The sequel attraction, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Miracle 4-D: Moon Palace arc, ran from May 31, 2019, to August 25, 2019. It featured all 10 Sailor Guardians and Super Sailor Moon. In January 2022, a new attraction was announced titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Miracle 4-D ~Moon Palace arc~ Deluxe. The attraction features the same storyline as the last and feature the Sailor Guardians in their princess forms. It ran from March 4, 2022, to August 28, 2022. Ice skating show An ice skating show of Sailor Moon was announced on June 30, 2019, starring Evgenia Medvedeva as the lead. The name for the ice-skating show was announced as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Prism on Ice, as well as the additional casts, with Anza from the first Sailor Moon musicals to play Queen Serenity, and the main voice actresses of the Sailor Moon Crystal anime series to voice their individual characters. Takuya Hiramatsu from the musicals was to write the screenplay, Yuka Sato and Benji Schwimmer were to be in charge of choreography, and Akiko Kosaka & Gesshoku Kaigi were to write the music for the show. The show was set to debut in early June 2020, but was first postponed to June 2021, and later to June 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally cancelled on February 23, 2023, due to an "unstable world situation". Idol group An idol pop group named SG5, short for Sailor Guardians 5, was announced in June 2022. Early plans to form the group began in 2020, with the official lineup and overall concept finalized in 2022. As part of the process, the group had to seek the approval of Naoko Takeuchi by performing in front of her and giving a presentation. Four of the group members, Sayaka, Ruri, Miyuu, and Kaede, had previously performed together as part of the idol group Happiness. The group was officially debuted in July 2022 at Anime Expo and is co-managed by LDH Japan Inc. and Three Six Zero. On March 1, 2023, SG5 released their debut single "Firetruck" on streaming platforms alongside a music video with references to the manga. Reception Sailor Moon is one of the most popular manga series of all time and continues to enjoy high readership worldwide. More than one million copies of its tankōbon volumes had been sold in Japan by the end of 1995.: 95  It has been described as iconic. By the series's 20th anniversary in 2012, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in over fifty countries, and the franchise has generated $2.5 billion in worldwide merchandise sales as of 1996. By 1995, Sailor Moon toys used to bring in more than $250 million per year in Japan. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award in 1993 for shōjo. The English adaptations of both the manga and the anime series became the first successful shōjo title in the United States. The character of Sailor Moon is recognized as one of the most important and popular female superheroes of all time. Sailor Moon has also become popular internationally. Sailor Moon was broadcast in Spain and France beginning in December 1993; these became the first countries outside Japan to broadcast the series. It was later aired in Russia, South Korea, the Philippines, China, Italy, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong, before North America picked up the franchise for adaptation. In the Philippines, Sailor Moon was one of its carrier network's main draws, helping it to become the third-biggest network in the country.: 10–11  In 2001, the Sailor Moon manga was Tokyopop's best selling property, outselling the next-best selling titles by at least a factor of 1.5. In Diamond Comic Distributors's May 1999 "Graphic Novel and Trade Paperback" category, Sailor Moon Volume 3 was the best-selling comic book in the United States. Academic Timothy J. Craig attributes Sailor Moon's international success to three things. First was the show's magical girl transformation of ordinary characters into superheroes. Second was the ability of marketers to establish the international audience's connection to characters despite their culture being Japanese. The third was that the main superhero was female, something which was still rare in pop culture in countries like the United States during the 1990s. In his 2007 book Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson gave the manga series three stars out of four. He enjoyed the blending of shōnen and shōjo styles and said the combat scenes seemed heavily influenced by Saint Seiya, but shorter and less bloody. He also said the manga itself appeared similar to Super Sentai television shows. Thompson found the series fun and entertaining, but said the repetitive plot lines were a detriment to the title, which the increasing quality of art could not make up for; even so, he called the series "sweet, effective entertainment." Thompson said although the audience for Sailor Moon is both male and female, Takeuchi does not use excessive fanservice for males, which would run the risk of alienating her female audience. Thompson said fight scenes are not physical and "boil down to their purest form of a clash of wills", which he says "makes thematic sense" for the manga. Comparing the manga and anime, Sylvain Durand said the manga artwork is "gorgeous", but its storytelling is more compressed and erratic and the anime has more character development. Durand said "the sense of tragedy is greater" in the manga's telling of the "fall of the Silver Millennium," giving more detail about the origins of the Four Kings of Heaven and on Usagi's final battle against Queen Beryl and Metaria. Durand said the anime omits information that makes the story easy to understand, but judges the anime as more "coherent" with a better balance of comedy and tragedy, whereas the manga is "more tragic" and focused on Usagi and Mamoru's romance. For the week of September 11, 2011, to September 17, 2011, the first volume of the re-released Sailor Moon manga was the best-selling manga on The New York Times Manga Best Sellers list, with the first volume of Codename: Sailor V in second place. The first print run of the first volume sold out after four weeks. In English-speaking countries, Sailor Moon developed a cult following among anime fans and male university students. Patrick Drazen says the Internet was a new medium that fans used to communicate and played a role in the popularity of Sailor Moon.: 281  Fans could use the Internet to communicate about the series, organize campaigns to return Sailor Moon to U.S. broadcast, to share information about episodes that had not yet aired, or to write fan fiction. Gemma Cox of Neo magazine said part of the series's allure was that fans communicated via the Internet about the differences between the dub and the original version. Cultural impact and legacy With their dynamic heroines and action-oriented plots, many credit Sailor Moon for reinvigorating the magical girl genre. After its success, many similar magical girl series, including Magic Knight Rayearth, Wedding Peach, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, Saint Tail, Cyber Team in Akihabara, Corrector Yui and Pretty Cure, emerged.: 199  Sailor Moon has been called "the biggest breakthrough" in English-dubbed anime until 1995, when it premiered on YTV,: 10–11  and "the pinnacle of little kid shōjo anime". Cultural anthropologist Rachel Thorn said that soon after Sailor Moon, shōjo manga started appearing in book shops instead of fandom-dominated comic shops. The series are credited as beginning a wider movement of girls taking up shōjo manga. Canadian librarian Gilles Poitras defines a generation of anime fans as those who were introduced to anime by Sailor Moon in the 1990s, saying they were both much younger than other fans and were also mostly female. Historian Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a Super Sentai-like team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with revitalizing the magical girl genre itself. A reviewer for THEM Anime Reviews also credited the anime series with changing the genre—its heroine must use her powers to fight evil, not simply have fun as previous magical girls had done. The series has also been compared to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,: 281  and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Sailor Moon also influenced the development of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, W.I.T.C.H., Winx Club, LoliRock, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Steven Universe, and Totally Spies!. In western culture, Sailor Moon is sometimes associated with the feminist and Girl Power movements and with empowering its viewers, especially regarding the "credible, charismatic and independent" characterizations of the Sailor Guardians. Although Sailor Moon is regarded as empowering to women and feminism in concept, through the aggressive nature and strong personalities of the Sailor Guardians, it is a specific type of feminist concept where "traditional feminine ideals [are] incorporated into characters that act in traditionally male capacities". While the Sailor Guardians are strong, independent fighters who thwart evil—which is generally a masculine stereotype—they are also ideally feminized in the transformation of the Sailor Guardians from teenage girls into magical girls. The most notable hyper-feminine features of the Sailor Guardians—and most other females in Japanese girls' comics—are the girls' thin bodies, long legs, and, in particular, round, orb-like eyes. Eyes are commonly known as the primal source within characters where emotion is evoked—sensitive characters have larger eyes than insensitive ones. The stereotypical role of women in Japanese culture is to undertake romantic and loving feelings; therefore, the prevalence of hyper-feminine qualities like the openness of the female eye in Japanese girls' comics is clearly exhibited in Sailor Moon. Thus, Sailor Moon emphasizes a type of feminist model by combining traditional masculine action with traditional female affection and sexuality through the Sailor Guardians. Merchandise Since the early 2000s, Toei Animation has collaborated with various different brands to create merchandise outside of children's demographic. On February 20, 2020, ColourPop released a Sailor Moon inspired makeup collection. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sailor Moon in the U.S., streetwear brand KITH released clothing like hoodies and t-shirts with Sailor Moon graphics on them. In honor of Sailor Moon's 30th anniversary, brands like Sanrio, Uniqlo, and Maison de FLEUR announced a collaboration in January 2022. References External links Official Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon 30th anniversary project website (in Japanese) USA Network site (via Internet Archive) Sailor Moon (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia Sailor Moon at Curlie Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon at IMDb Sailor Moon at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on February 10, 2017.

Naoko_Takeuchi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoko_Takeuchi

Naoko Takeuchi (Japanese: 武内 直子, Hepburn: Takeuchi Naoko, born March 15, 1967) is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known as the author of Sailor Moon, one of the most popular manga series of all time. She has won several awards, including the 1993 Kodansha Manga Award for Sailor Moon. Takeuchi is married to Yoshihiro Togashi, the author of YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter. Early life Takeuchi was born in Kofu, Yamanashi, Japan to Kenji and Ikuko Takeuchi. She has a younger brother, Shingo. She gave the names of her relatives to the characters she created for Sailor Moon, and mentions this in interviews and in several comic strips she produced, in place of author notes. Takeuchi attended Kofu Ichi High School, where she wore a sailor uniform and joined the astronomy and manga clubs. These experiences influenced her work for Sailor Moon, in addition to her other pieces, such as Love Call and Rain Kiss. Her formative high school experiences influenced her trajectory to become a manga artist. Takeuchi's father encouraged her to pursue other career paths, in case she wouldn't find success as a professional artist, which is why she attended university to study chemistry. Takeuchi graduated from the Kyoritsu College of Pharmacy, where she received a degree in chemistry and became a licensed pharmacist. Her senior thesis was called "Heightened Effects of Thrombolytic Actions Due to Ultrasound". Career 1986–1997: Early work and success After graduating from the Kyoritsu College of Pharmacy, at the age of 19, Takeuchi entered the manga industry by submitting her work Love Call to Kodansha; Takeuchi received Nakayoshi's New Artist award for Love Call. She worked steadily on one-shot pieces until writing Maria, which was published in Nakayoshi from early to mid-1990. This work, Takeuchi's first serial comic, was loosely based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs and on her friend Marie Koizumi, who helped write it. After completing Maria, Takeuchi worked on the ice-skating series The Cherry Project, which was serialized in Nakayoshi from late 1990 to 1991. While working on The Cherry Project, Takeuchi wanted to do a manga on outer space and girl fighters. Her editor, Fumio Osano, asked her to put the fighters in sailor suits. This concept would later become a one-shot called Codename: Sailor V, which would later begin serialization in RunRun. When Toei Animation planned to adapt her manga into an anime series, she reworked Sailor V and added four other superheroines. In December 1991, Nakayoshi began serializing Sailor Moon, which became an instant hit. The success encouraged Takeuchi to work on both Sailor Moon and Sailor V from 1991 to 1997. However, RunRun was canceled with the November 1997 issue, and the planned Sailor V anime adaptation was canceled along with it. During that six-year period, she produced 60 chapters, which were collected in 18 volumes. The success of the manga led to a 200-episode anime adaptation, three animated films, numerous video games, and wide-ranging merchandising. She had an interview with Silent Möbius creator, Kia Asamiya. At the series' end, Takeuchi worked on PQ Angels for Nakayoshi. This gained a fair amount of popularity, but was canceled due to Kodansha losing seven pages of her manuscript. Takeuchi said that Toei Animation had the manuscript, therefore it would have been possible to create an anime adaptation of the series. Takeuchi's own studio is called "Princess Naoko Planning" (PNP). Takeuchi established PNP to manage her properties, mainly Sailor Moon. The studio later encompassed Yoshihiro Togashi's work as well and appeared in the credits for such anime as Level E and Hunter × Hunter. Its name also appears on the musical credits for Shin Kaguya Shima Densetsu and other projects. 1998–2009 Following the loss of seven pages of Takeuchi's PQ Angels manuscript, Osano departed Kodansha and the plans for the Materials Collection were canceled. Takeuchi departed Kodansha for Shueisha. On August 13, 1998, Takeuchi made her first appearance in the United States at San Diego Comic-Con for three days. That same year, she published the first Sailor Moon artbook since her departure from Kodansha, Sailor Moon Infinity Collection Art Book with limited releases. While working on her short comic strip Princess Naoko Takeuchi Back-to-Work Punch!!, Takeuchi met Yoshihiro Togashi at a Weekly Shōnen Jump meeting hosted by Kazushi Hagiwara, and had a meeting arranged between them by voice actress Megumi Ogata. She collaborated with Togashi as an assistant (doing screentone) and as a manager on volume 1 of Hunter × Hunter. However, the work and the demands proved more than she had expected, and as a result, Takeuchi left Shueisha. Around this time, Takeuchi conceived the idea for a one-shot called Toki☆Meka, which eventually turned into Toki☆Meca. Togashi had a similar idea at the same time as her, but never fully brought it to fruition. He helped somewhat with Toki☆Meka at this point in developing the idea by drawing some concept sketches, which Takeuchi showed in Toki☆Meca volume 1. Togashi and Takeuchi married in 1999. From this marriage, the couple have two children: a son, born in January 2001, and a daughter, born in 2009. After Kodansha's rights to Sailor Moon expired, Takeuchi returned to the publisher in 1999 to develop and publish the Materials Collection. She also began serializing Love Witch, but it was cancelled. Takeuchi started to work on the reprints of Sailor Moon and Sailor V, and published Toki☆Meca in Nakayoshi. In 2003, Takeuchi became heavily involved in producing Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, a tokusatsu television series based on Sailor Moon, as she had an interest in learning more about the anime industry. This culminated in the creation of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. The series displays a plot that is heavily reliant on the manga and also explores many themes that the manga was unable to explore. She showed up at the official conference with a fist up, meaning "good luck", in Act Zero. After the production of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon ended in 2004, Takeuchi continued to work on Toki☆Meca. During the manga's serialization, Osano returned as her editor. Takeuchi also worked more closely with managing PNP and gave talks to college students. At the same time, she wrote a children's book titled Oboo-nu- to Chiboo-nu- as a birthday present to her son. (Togashi provided illustrations for the book; Takeuchi made mention of this in the back of the first volume of Toki☆Meca.) She still works on the website, updating it about once a month with new flash animations or profiles. 2010–2019 In 2012, it was announced that a new Sailor Moon anime adaptation was in development. With it, Takeuchi started a Kanzenban version of the manga, which was announced by Osano, and will include fixed past mistakes and new covers for the manga. Color pages are also included for the title pages. There was also an artbook announced, and she has been working on merchandise, which was announced by Osano on his Twitter feed. The new reboot anime, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, debuted in July 2014. It streamed on Niconico bi-weekly, and ended in July 2015, spanning a total of 26 episodes, which cover the Dark Kingdom and Black Moon arc of the manga. Takeuchi wrote the ending theme song, "Moonbow" (月虹, Gekkō), under her penname, "Sumire Shirobara" (白薔薇sumire, Shirobara Sumire). The series eventually gained its 13-episode third season, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, covering the Infinity arc of the manga (known as Death Busters in Japan), and aired weekly on Japanese television from April to June 2016. 2020–present In 2020, the two volumes of official "All Colored Eternal Edition" (オールカラー完全版, Ōrukarā Kanzenban) of the Sailor Moon manga was released on June 29, with Takeuchi providing new illustrations for both covers. In 2021, Takeuchi chief supervised the production of the two-part anime film, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie, which adapted the Dream arc of the manga (known as Dead Moon in Japan), and acted as a "fourth season" for the Sailor Moon Crystal series. Both films were released in 2021 in Japanese theaters, with the first film on January 8, and the second film on February 11. Takeuchi also provided the lyrics for the theme song, "Moon Color Chainon" (月色Chainon, Tsukiiro Chainon), under the name of "Sumire Shirobara". In 2022, Takeuchi chief supervised the production of the sequel to Sailor Moon Eternal, titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos The Movie. The two-part film covered the Stars arc of the manga (known as Shadow Galactica in Japan), and acted as a "fifth and final season" for the Sailor Moon Crystal series. Both films were released in June 2023, with the first film on the 9th, and the second film on the 30th. Works Manga Anime Sailor Moon (1990s series) Sailor Moon Crystal (2014 reboot series) Illustrations Maria (ま·り·あ, Ma-ri-a) (novelization of Takeuchi's manga, with prose by Marie Koizumi), 1994 Mermaid Panic (マーメイド・ぱにっく) Volumes 1–4 (written by Marie Koizumi), 1996-1997 Atashi no Wagamama wo Kiite... (あたしのわがままを聞いて...) (written by Marie Koizumi), 1998 Zettai, Kare w Ubatte Miseru! (絶対、彼を奪ってみせる!) (written by Marie Koizumi), 1998 Written books Oboo-nu- to Chiboo-nu- (illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi) A children's book written for her son's birthday. Song lyrics Takeuchi wrote the lyrics for a number of songs featured in the Sailor Moon anime and live-action series. Though mainly character-based image songs, they include a few theme songs. These include: Awards Takeuchi has won several awards, including the 2nd Nakayoshi Comic Prize for Newcomers for Yume ja Nai no Ne in 1985. She also won for "Love Call", which won Nakayoshi's New Artist award which debuted in the Nakayoshi Deluxe September 1986 issue. In 1993 she won the 17th Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo for Sailor Moon. References External links Naoko Takeuchi at Anime News Network's encyclopedia Naoko Takeuchi at IMDb

Yoshihiro_Togashi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Togashi

Yoshihiro Togashi (Japanese: 冨樫 義博, Hepburn: Togashi Yoshihiro, born April 27, 1966) is a Japanese manga artist. He began drawing manga at an early age, before being recognized for his talent by the publishing company Shueisha while attending college. Togashi has authored several different manga series in different genres over the past three decades. He is best known for writing and illustrating the YuYu Hakusho (1990–1994) and Hunter × Hunter (1998–present) series, which are some of the best-selling manga in history. Togashi is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the author of Sailor Moon. Biography Early life Born in Shinjō, Yamagata to a family that owned a paper shop, Togashi began drawing manga casually in his first to second year of elementary school. In high school, Togashi joined the fine-arts club; he later enrolled at Yamagata University where he studied education in the hope of becoming a teacher. During college he submitted some of his manga work to Weekly Young Jump, published by Shueisha. In 1986, at age 20, he authored a manga titled Buttobi Straight (ぶっとびストレート, Buttobi Sutorēto) for which he received the Tezuka Award, the most prestigious award for new comic artists in Japan. Another manga by Togashi titled Jura no Mizuki (ジュラのミヅキ) was an honorable mention in Shueisha's first annual Hop Step Award Selection magazine, published in 1988. After having given up his goal of becoming a teacher, Togashi was contacted by an editor of Weekly Shōnen Jump during his senior year of college, who asked him to move to Tokyo. Career Togashi's earliest published works for Shueisha include Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!! (狼なんて怖くない!!, lit. I'm Not Afraid of the Wolf!!), a collection of comedy manga short-stories. Weekly Shōnen Jump published some of the stories prior to a tankōbon release in 1989. Between 1989 and 1990, Togashi authored Ten de Shōwaru Cupid (てんで性悪キューピッド, lit. An Ill-tempered Cupid in Heaven), a four-volume romance manga involving the relationship between a normal, human boy and a beautiful, devil girl. In 1990, Togashi made a name for himself with his next series, YuYu Hakusho (幽☆遊☆白書, lit. Poltergeist Report). Based on his interests in the occult and horror films, the plot features the character Yusuke Urameshi, who is killed and brought back to life as an "Underworld Detective". The manga, which lasted 175 chapters over 19 tankōbon from 1990 to 1994, went on to sell over 78 million copies worldwide, earned Togashi a Shogakukan Manga Award in 1994, and received a hit anime adaptation. In 1995, he created Level E (レベルE), a science fiction-comedy manga. Comprising three volumes, it was first published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1995 and ran until 1997. Level E was adapted into an anime television series in 2011. Togashi's next major manga series, Hunter × Hunter, began serialization in 1998. The story revolves around the protagonist Gon Freecss, a young boy searching for his father, a legendary, elite member of society called a "Hunter". This manga also performed very well commercially, with the first 20 volumes selling nearly 55 million copies in Japan as of August 2011. It has 84 million copies in circulation as of July 4, 2022. In 2008, Togashi tied with One Piece author Eiichiro Oda as the fifth favorite manga artist from a poll posted by the marketing research firm Oricon. In 2017, Togashi wrote the two-chapter manga Akuten Wars (悪天ウォーズ). It was illustrated by Hachi Mizuno and published in the September and November issues of Grand Jump Premium. Personal life Togashi is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon. The two were introduced at a party hosted by Kazushi Hagiwara in August 1997. The following year, Takeuchi assisted Togashi for a short time by adding screentone to his manga Hunter × Hunter. Togashi and Takeuchi were married on January 6, 1999. In attendance for the ceremony were several fellow manga artists and voice actors from both the Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho anime series. The couple have two children and have collaborated on a children's book titled Oobo— Nu— Tochiibo— Nu— (おおぼーぬーとちぃぼーぬー), which Takeuchi wrote and Togashi illustrated. Togashi enjoys board-game-style video games and bowling with his family. He also likes watching horror movies, and considers Don't Look Up and Dawn of the Dead his favorites. Togashi cites visual effects designer H. R. Giger as a major influence. Togashi suffered from an immense amount of stress while working on YuYu Hakusho, which caused him inconsistent sleep patterns and chest pain. On March 29, 2011, Togashi and his fellow manga artists posted messages on the official Shōnen Jump website in support of the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. He has a younger brother named Hideaki Togashi, who is also a manga artist. The Togashi Paper Store run by his mother is still open in Shinjō, Yamagata. On May 24, 2022, Togashi created a Twitter account that was later verified by Shueisha. He gained over one million followers in one day, and two million in 72 hours. He is the most-followed manga artist on the platform, with over three million followers. Currently he mainly posts the progresses of his works on Twitter. For years, he has been suffering from chronic back issues, leading to several hiatuses spanning multiple years. Due to these issues, he is only able to draw sporadically and only while laying down. Style Manga critic Jason Thompson stated that "Togashi is no ordinary mangaka; he does things his own way", furthering that his first one-shots were a mix of school comedy and "splatter-film horror references". At age 24, Togashi created a hit with the supernatural fighting comedy YuYu Hakusho, one of the "obvious imitators" of the Dragon Ball formula of "start out as a comedy and then, once the readers like the characters, have them kick the crap out of each other". Then, rather than continue the series for as long as possible to maximize his profit, Togashi ended the series abruptly. He then created the "0% fighting and 100% humor" science-fiction horror manga Level E. Togashi's style of artwork began with screentone but gradually developed into minimalism. Both Rika Takahashi of EX.org and Claude J. Pelletier of Protoculture Addicts found the art style in Hunter × Hunter much simpler than YuYu Hakusho and Level E. Thompson noted that artwork during Hunter × Hunter's magazine run is often "sketchy" and missing backgrounds, but Togashi goes back and fixes it for its collected tankōbon release. He also wrote that Togashi has a love of gore and noted that some panels in Hunter × Hunter are apparently censored for gore, being covered with screentone. Since 2006, Togashi has taken numerous lengthy hiatuses while serializing Hunter × Hunter. Some were due to illness and lower back pain, while reasons for others were never disclosed. In 2012, Thompson speculated that Togashi's slow output was "because he's a perfectionist who enjoys his work and wants to do things himself", noting that his assistants could potentially be called upon further. In his 2017 book Sensei Hakusho, which recounts his work as Togashi's assistant from 1990 to 1997, Kunio Ajino stated that Togashi was unusually generous to his staff. In July 2022, Togashi revealed that he was unable to sit in a chair for two years due to his back and hip problems, but was able to resume drawing by doing so while lying down. Manga artists Nobuhiro Watsuki and Pink Hanamori have cited Togashi and YuYu Hakusho as an influence. He is one of the favorite artists of Naruto author Masashi Kishimoto. Jujutsu Kaisen author Gege Akutami is very influenced by Togashi and inspired by YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter. Works Manga Sensēha Toshishita!! (1986, later featured in Ten de Shōwaru Cupid Volume 4) Jura no Miduki (1987, featured in Hop Step Award Selection Volume 1 and later in Ten de Shōwaru Cupid Volume 4) Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!! (1989, tankōbon published by Shueisha) Buttobi Straight (1987) Tonda Birthday Present (1987, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Occult Tanteidan (1988–1989, two parts published in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Horror Angel (1988, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!! (1989, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Ten de Shōwaru Cupid (1989–1990, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump) YuYu Hakusho (1990–1994, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Level E (1995–1997, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Hunter × Hunter (1998–present), serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump) Akuten Wars (2017, published in Grand Jump Premium, story only, illustrated by Hachi Mizuno) Other Yoshirin de Pon! (1994, YuYu Hakusho dōjinshi distributed at 1994 summer Comic Market) Biohazard 3: The Last Escape Official Guidebook (1999, published by ASCII) Official Hunter × Hunter Guide (2004, published by Shueisha) YuYu Hakusho Who's Who Underworld Character Book (2005, published by Shueisha) YuYu Hakusho Illustrations (2005, published by Shueisha) Oobo— Nu— To Chiibo— Nu— (2005, published by Kodansha) Hetappi Manga Kenkyūjo R (2011, published by Shueisha) References External links Yoshihiro Togashi on Twitter Yoshihiro Togashi Exhibition -Puzzle- website (in Japanese) Yoshihiro Togashi at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

United_States_presidential_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election

The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College. These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for president, and for vice president. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (at least 270 out of 538, since the Twenty-Third Amendment granted voting rights to citizens of D.C.) is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president. United States presidential elections differ from many republics around the world (operating under either the presidential system or the semi-presidential system) which use direct elections from the national popular vote ('one person, one vote') of their entire countries to elect their respective presidents. The United States instead uses indirect elections for its president through the Electoral College, and the system is highly decentralized like other elections in the United States. The Electoral College and its procedure are established in the U.S. Constitution by Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 4; and the Twelfth Amendment (which replaced Clause 3 after its ratification in 1804). Under Clause 2, each state casts as many electoral votes as the total number of its Senators and Representatives in Congress, while (per the Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961) Washington, D.C., casts the same number of electoral votes as the least-represented state, which is three. Also under Clause 2, the manner for choosing electors is determined by each state legislature, not directly by the federal government. Many state legislatures previously selected their electors directly, but over time all switched to using the popular vote to choose electors. Beyond the parameters set in the U.S. Constitution, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of administering the popular vote, including a majority of the voter eligibility and registration requirements. Almost all states mandate the winner of the plurality of its constituent statewide popular vote ('one person, one vote') shall receive all of that state's electors ("winner-takes-all'). Eighteen states also have specific laws that punish electors who vote in opposition to the plurality, known as "faithless" or "unpledged" electors. In modern times, faithless and unpledged electors have not affected the ultimate outcome of an election, so the results can generally be determined based on the state-by-state popular vote. In addition, most of the time, the winner also wins the national popular vote. There have been four exceptions: 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 produced an Electoral College winner who lost the popular vote due to the outsized effects of close and narrow pluralities in numerous swing states. In addition, the 1824 election was the only presidential election under the current system ever decided by a contingent election in Congress, which elected a different president than the candidate with a plurality in both the electoral and popular vote. Presidential elections occur every four years on Election Day, which since 1845 has been the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This date coincides with the general elections of various other federal, state, and local races; since local governments are responsible for managing elections, these races typically all appear on one ballot. The Electoral College electors then formally cast their electoral votes on the first Monday after December 12 at their state's capital. Congress then certifies the results in early January, and the presidential term begins on Inauguration Day, which since the passage of the Twentieth Amendment has been set at January 20. The nomination process, consisting of the primary elections and caucuses and the nominating conventions, was not specified in the Constitution, but was developed over time by the states and political parties. These primary elections are generally held between January and June before the general election in November, while the nominating conventions are held in the summer. Though not codified by law, political parties also follow an indirect election process, where voters in the fifty states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who then elect their party's presidential nominee. Each party may then choose a vice presidential running mate to join the ticket, which is either determined by choice of the nominee or by a second round of voting. Because of changes to national campaign finance laws since the 1970s regarding the disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns, presidential candidates from the major political parties usually declare their intentions to run as early as the spring of the previous calendar year before the election (almost 21 months before Inauguration Day). History Electoral College Article Two of the Constitution originally established the method of presidential elections, including the creation of the Electoral College, the result of a compromise between those constitutional framers who wanted the Congress to choose the president, and those who preferred a national popular vote. As set forth in Article Two, each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its delegates in both houses of Congress, combined. In 1961, the ratification of the Twenty-Third Amendment granted a number of electors to the District of Columbia, an amount equal to the number of electors allocated to the least populous state. However, U.S. territories are not allocated electors, and therefore are not represented in the Electoral College. State legislatures Constitutionally, the legislature of each state determines how its electors are chosen; Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 states that each state shall appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct". During the first presidential election in 1789, only 6 of the 11 eligible states chose electors by any form of popular vote. Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors. In 1800, only five of the 16 states chose electors by a popular vote; by 1824, after the rise of Jacksonian democracy, the proportion of states that chose electors by popular vote had sharply risen to 18 out of 24 states. This gradual movement toward greater democratization coincided with a gradual decrease in property restrictions for the franchise. By 1840, only one of the 26 states (South Carolina) still selected electors by the state legislature. Vice presidents Under the original system established by Article Two, electors cast votes for two candidates for president. The candidate with the highest number of votes (provided it was a majority of the electoral votes) became the president, and the second-place candidate became the vice president. This presented a problem during the presidential election of 1800 when Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson and challenged Jefferson's election to the office. In the end, Jefferson was chosen as the president because of Alexander Hamilton's influence in the House. In response to the 1800 election, the Twelfth Amendment was passed, requiring electors to cast two distinct votes: one for president and another for vice president. While this solved the problem at hand, it reduced the prestige of the vice presidency, as the office was no longer held by the leading challenger for the presidency. The separate ballots for president and vice president became something of a moot issue later in the 19th century when it became the norm for popular elections to determine a state's Electoral College delegation. Electors chosen this way are pledged to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate (offered by the same political party). Although the president and vice president are legally elected separately, in practice they are chosen together. Tie votes The Twelfth Amendment also established rules when no candidate wins a majority vote in the Electoral College. In the presidential election of 1824, Andrew Jackson received a plurality, but not a majority, of electoral votes cast. The election was thrown to the House, and John Quincy Adams was elected president. A deep rivalry resulted between Andrew Jackson and House Speaker Henry Clay, who had also been a candidate in the election. Since the vice presidential candidate John Calhoun received a majority of votes having been on both Jackson and Adams tickets so there was no need for the Senate to vote for a vice president. Popular vote Since 1824, aside from the occasional "faithless elector", the popular vote indirectly determines the winner of a presidential election by determining the electoral vote, as each state or district's popular vote determines its electoral college vote. Although the nationwide popular vote does not directly determine the winner of a presidential election, it does strongly correlate with who is the victor. In 54 of the 59 total elections held so far (about 91 percent), the winner of the national popular vote has also carried the Electoral College vote. The winners of the nationwide popular vote and the Electoral College vote have differed only in close elections. In highly competitive elections, candidates focus on turning out their vote in the contested swing states critical to winning an electoral college majority, so they do not try to maximize their popular vote by real or fraudulent vote increases in one-party areas. However, candidates have failed to get the most votes in the nationwide popular vote in a presidential election and still won. In the 1824 election, Jackson won the popular vote, but no one received a majority of electoral votes. According to the Twelfth Amendment, the House must choose the president out of the top three people in the election. Clay had come in fourth, so he threw his support to Adams, who then won. Because Adams later named Clay his Secretary of State, Jackson's supporters claimed that Adams gained the presidency by making a deal with Clay. Charges of a "corrupt bargain" followed Adams through his term. In five presidential elections (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016), the winner of the electoral vote lost the popular vote outright. Numerous constitutional amendments have been submitted seeking to replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote, but none has ever successfully passed both Houses of Congress. Another alternate proposal is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an interstate compact whereby individual participating states agree to allocate their electors based on the winner of the national popular vote instead of just their respective statewide results. Election dates The presidential election day was established on a Tuesday in November because of the factors involved (weather, harvests and worship). When voters used to travel to the polls by horse, Tuesday was an ideal day because it allowed people to worship on Sunday, ride to their county seat on Monday, and vote on Tuesday—all before market day, Wednesday. November also fits nicely between harvest time and harsh winter weather, which could be especially challenging for people traveling by horse and buggy. Electoral Count Act of 1887 Congress passed the Electoral Count Act in 1887 in response to the disputed 1876 election, in which several states submitted competing slates of electors. The law established procedures for the counting of electoral votes. It has subsequently been codified into law in Title 3 of the United States Code. It also includes a "safe harbor" deadline where states must finally resolve any controversies over the selection of their electors. Inauguration day Until 1937, presidents were not sworn in until March 4 because it took a long time to count and report ballots, and because of the winner's logistical issues in moving to the capital. With improvements in transportation and the passage of the Twentieth Amendment, presidential inaugurations were moved forward to noon on January 20, thereby allowing presidents to start their duties sooner. Campaign spending The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 was enacted to increase disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns. Subsequent amendments to law require that candidates to a federal office must file a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission before they can receive contributions aggregating in excess of $5,000 or make expenditures aggregating in excess of $5,000. Thus, this began a trend of presidential candidates declaring their intentions to run as early as the spring of the preceding calendar year so they can start raising and spending the money needed for their nationwide campaign. Political parties There is no provision for the role of political parties in the U.S. Constitution, since the Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. Thus, the first president, George Washington, was elected as an independent. Since the emergence of the American two-party system, and the election of Washington's successor, John Adams, in 1796, all winners of U.S. presidential elections have represented one of two major parties. Third parties have taken second place only twice, in 1860 and 1912. The last time a third (independent) candidate achieved significant success (although still finishing in third place) was Ross Perot in 1992, and the last time a third-party candidate received any electoral votes not from faithless electors was George Wallace in 1968. Primaries, caucuses, and nominating conventions In the first two presidential elections, the Electoral College handled both the nominations and elections in 1789 and 1792 that selected Washington. Starting with the 1796 election, congressional party or a state legislature party caucus selected the party's presidential candidates. That system collapsed in 1824, and since 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination has been a national convention. Delegates to the national convention were usually selected at state conventions whose own delegates were chosen by district conventions. Sometimes they were dominated by intrigue between political bosses who controlled delegates; the national convention was far from democratic or transparent. Progressive Era reformers then looked to the primary election as a way to measure popular opinion of candidates, as opposed to the opinion of the bosses. Florida enacted the first presidential primary in 1901. The Wisconsin direct open primary of 1905 was the first to eliminate the caucus and mandate direct selection of national convention delegates. In 1910, Oregon became the first state to establish a presidential preference primary, which requires delegates to the National Convention to support the winner of the primary at the convention. The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the presidential nomination despite not winning a single primary under his own name. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern – the McGovern–Fraser Commission – recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation. A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates in 1972, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries. Procedure Eligibility requirements Article Two of the Constitution stipulates that for a person to serve as president, the individual must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the United States for a period of no less than 14 years. A candidate may start running their campaign early before turning 35 years old or completing 14 years of residency, but must meet the age and residency requirements by Inauguration Day. The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution also sets a term limit: a president cannot be elected to more than two terms. The U.S. Constitution also has two provisions that apply to all federal officers appointed by the president, and debatably also to the presidency. When Senator Barack Obama was elected president a legal debate concluded that the president was not an "office under the United States" for many reasons, but most significantly because Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 would violate the legal principle of surplusage if the president were also a civil officer. There exists no case law to resolve the debate however public opinion seems to favor that the presidency is also bound by the following qualifications: Upon conviction at impeachment, the Senate may vote to disqualify that person from holding any "public office... under the United States" in the future. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the election to any federal office of any person who engaged in insurrection after having held any federal or state office, rebellion or treason; this disqualification can be waived if such an individual gains the consent of two-thirds of both houses of Congress. In addition, the Twelfth Amendment establishes that the vice-president must meet all the qualifications of being a president. Although not a mandatory requirement, Federal campaign finance laws including the Federal Election Campaign Act state that a candidate who intends to receive contributions aggregating in excess of $5,000 or make expenditures aggregating in excess of $5,000, among others, must first file a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. This has led presidential candidates, especially members from the two major political parties, to officially announce their intentions to run as early as the spring of the previous calendar year so they can start raising or spending the money needed for their nationwide campaign. Potential candidates usually form exploratory committees even earlier to determine the feasibility of them actually running. Decentralized election system and voter eligibility The U.S. presidential election process, like all other elections in the United States, is a highly decentralized system. While the U.S. Constitution does set parameters for the election of the president and other federal officials, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of elections in the U.S., including the primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), and the specific details of running each state's electoral college meeting. All elections, including federal, are administered by the individual states. Thus, the presidential election is really an amalgamation of separate state elections instead of a single national election run by the federal government. Candidates must submit separate filings in each of the 50 states if they want to qualify on each state's ballot, and the requirements for filing vary by state. The eligibility of an individual for voting is set out in the Constitution and regulated at state level. The 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments to the Constitution state that suffrage cannot be denied on grounds of race or color, sex, or age for citizens eighteen years or older, respectively. Beyond these basic qualifications, it is the responsibility of state legislatures to regulate voter eligibility and registration. And the specific requirements for voter eligibility and registration also vary by state, e.g. some states ban convicted felons from voting. Nominating process The modern nominating process of U.S. presidential elections consists of two major parts: a series of presidential primary elections and caucuses held in each state, and the presidential nominating conventions held by each political party. This process was never included in the Constitution, and thus evolved over time by the political parties to clear the field of candidates. The primary elections are run by state and local governments, while the caucuses are organized directly by the political parties. Some states hold only primary elections, some hold only caucuses, and others use a combination of both. These primaries and caucuses are staggered generally between January and June before the federal election, with Iowa and New Hampshire traditionally holding the first presidential state caucus and primary, respectively. Like the general election, presidential caucuses or primaries are indirect elections. The major political parties officially vote for their presidential candidate at their respective nominating conventions, usually all held in the summer before the federal election. Depending on each state's law and state's political party rules, when voters cast ballots for a candidate in a presidential caucus or primary, they may be voting to award delegates "bound" to vote for a candidate at the presidential nominating conventions, or they may simply be expressing an opinion that the state party is not bound to follow in selecting delegates to their respective national convention. Unlike the general election, voters in the U.S. territories can also elect delegates to the national conventions. Furthermore, each political party can determine how many delegates to allocate to each state and territory. In 2012 for example, the Democratic and Republican party conventions each used two different formulas to allocate delegates. The Democrats-based theirs on two main factors: the proportion of votes each state gave to the Democratic candidate in the previous three presidential elections, and the number of electoral votes each state had in the Electoral College. In contrast, the Republicans assigned to each state 10 delegates, plus three delegates per congressional district. Both parties then gave a fixed number of delegates to each territory, and finally bonus delegates to states and territories that passed certain criteria. Along with delegates chosen during primaries and caucuses, state and U.S. territory delegations to both the Democratic and Republican party conventions also include "unpledged" delegates who have a vote. For Republicans, they consist of the three top party officials from each state and territory. Democrats have a more expansive group of unpledged delegates called "superdelegates", who are party leaders and elected officials. Each party's presidential candidate also chooses a vice presidential nominee to run with him or her on the same ticket, and this choice is rubber-stamped by the convention. If no single candidate has secured a majority of delegates (including both pledged and unpledged), then a "brokered convention" results. All pledged delegates are then "released" and can switch their allegiance to a different candidate. Thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse trading, and additional rounds of re-votes. The conventions have historically been held inside convention centers, but since the late 20th century both the Democratic and Republican parties have favored sports arenas and domed stadiums to accommodate the increasing attendance. Campaign strategy One major component of getting elected to any office is running a successful campaign. There are, however, multiple ways to go about creating a successful campaign. Several strategies are employed by candidates from both sides of the political spectrum. Though the ideas may differ the goal of them all are the same, "...to mobilize supporters and persuade undecided voters..." (Sides et al., pg. 126 para, 2). The goal of any campaign strategy is to create an effective path to victory for the intended candidate. Joel Bradshaw is a political scientist who has four propositions necessary to develop such a strategy. The first one being, the separation of the eligible voters into three groups: Undecided voters, opponent voters, and your voting base. Second, is the utilization of previous election results and survey data that can be used to identify who falls into the categories given in section one. Third, it is not essential, nor possible to get the support of every voter in an election. The campaign focus should be held mostly to keeping the base and using data to determine how to swing the undecided voters. Fourth, now that the campaign has identified the ideal base strategy, it is now time to allocate resources properly to make sure your strategy is fulfilled to its extent, (Sides et al. pg. 126, para 4, and pg. 127, para 1). Campaign tactics are also an essential part of any strategy and rely mostly on the campaign's resources and the way they use them to advertise. Most candidates draw on a wide variety of tactics in the hopes to flood all forms of media, though they do not always have the finances. The most expensive form of advertising is running ads on broadcast television and is the best way to reach the largest number of potential voters. This tactic does have its drawback, however, as it is the most expensive form of advertisement. Even though it reaches the largest number of potential voters it is not the most effective way of swaying voters. The most effective way is believed to be through personal contact as many political scientists agree. It is confirmed that it is much more effective than contacting potential voters by email or by phone, (Sides et al., pg. 147 para, 2, 3). These are just some of the wide variety of tactics used in campaigns. The popular vote on Election Day Under the United States Constitution, the manner of choosing electors for the Electoral College is determined by each state's legislature. Although each state designates electors by popular vote, other methods are allowed. For instance, instead of having a popular vote, a number of states used to select presidential electors by a direct vote of the state legislature itself. However, federal law does specify that all electors must be selected on the same day, which is "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November," i.e., a Tuesday no earlier than November 2 and no later than November 8. Today, the states and the District of Columbia each conduct their own popular elections on Election Day to help determine their respective slate of electors. Generally, voters are required to vote on a ballot where they select the candidate of their choice. The presidential ballot is a vote "for the electors of a candidate" meaning the voter is not voting for the candidate, but endorsing a slate of electors pledged to vote for a specific presidential and vice presidential candidate. Many voting ballots allow a voter to "blanket vote" for all candidates in a particular political party or to select individual candidates on a line by line voting system. Which candidates appear on the voting ticket is determined through a legal process known as ballot access. Usually, the size of the candidate's political party and the results of the major nomination conventions determine who is pre-listed on the presidential ballot. Thus, the presidential election ticket will not list every candidate running for president, but only those who have secured a major party nomination or whose size of their political party warrants having been formally listed. Laws allow other candidates pre-listed on a ticket, provided enough voters have endorsed that candidate, usually through a signature list. The final way to be elected for president is to have one's name written in at the time of election as a write-in candidate. This method is used for candidates who did not fulfill the legal requirements to be pre-listed on the voting ticket. However, since a slate of electors must be associated with these candidates to vote for them (and someone for vice president) in the electoral college in the event they win the presidential election in a state, most states require a slate of electors be designated before the election in order for a write-in candidate to win, essentially meaning that most write-in votes do not count. In any event, a write-in candidate has never won an election in a state for president of the United States. Write-in votes are also used by voters to express a distaste for the listed candidates, by writing in an alternative candidate for president such as Mickey Mouse or comedian Stephen Colbert (whose application was voted down by the South Carolina Democratic Party). Because U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College, U.S. citizens in those areas do not vote in the general election for president. Guam has held straw polls for president since the 1980 election to draw attention to this fact. Electoral college Most state laws establish a winner-take-all system, wherein the ticket that wins a plurality of votes wins all of that state's allocated electoral votes, and thus has their slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College. Maine and Nebraska do not use this method, giving two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one electoral vote to the winner of each Congressional district instead. Each state's winning slate of electors then meets at their respective state's capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their electoral votes on separate ballots for president and vice president. Although Electoral College members can vote for anyone under the U.S. Constitution, 32 states plus the District of Columbia have laws against faithless electors, those electors who do not cast their electoral votes for the person for whom they have pledged to vote. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the case Chiafalo v. Washington on July 6, 2020, that the constitution does not prevent states from penalizing or replacing faithless electors. In early January, the total Electoral College vote count is opened by the sitting vice president, acting in his or her capacity as president of the Senate, and read aloud to a joint session of the incoming Congress, which was elected at the same time as the president. Members of Congress are free to object to any or all of a state's electoral vote count, provided that the objection is presented in writing and is signed by at least one member of each house of Congress. If such an objection is submitted, both houses of Congress adjourn to their respective chambers to debate and vote on the objection. The approval of both houses of Congress is required to invalidate those electoral votes in question. If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral vote (at least 270), the president is determined by the rules outlined by the Twelfth Amendment. Specifically, the selection of president would then be decided by a contingent election in a ballot of the House of Representatives. For the purposes of electing the president, each state has only one vote. A ballot of the Senate is held to choose the vice president. In this ballot, each senator has one vote. The House has chosen the victor of the presidential race only twice, in 1800 and 1824; the Senate has chosen the victor of the vice-presidential race only once, in 1836. If the president is not chosen by Inauguration Day, the vice president-elect acts as president. If neither are chosen by then, Congress by law determines who shall act as president, pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment. Unless there are faithless electors, disputes, or other controversies, the events in December and January mentioned above are largely a formality since the winner can be determined based on the state-by-state popular vote results. Between the general election and Inauguration Day, this apparent winner is referred to as the "president-elect" (unless it is a sitting president who has won re-election). Election calendar The typical periods of the presidential election process are as follows, with the dates corresponding to the 2024 general election: Late 2022 to early 2023 – Candidates announce their intentions to run, and (if necessary) file their Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission June 2023 to January 2024 – Primary and caucus debates January to June 2024 – Primaries and caucuses Late May to August 2024 – Nominating conventions (including those of the minor third parties) September and October 2024 – Presidential election debates November 5, 2024 – Election Day December 17, 2024 – Electors cast their electoral votes January 6, 2025 – Congress counts and certifies the electoral votes Trends Previous experience Among the 45 persons who have served as president, only Donald Trump had never held a position in either government or the military prior to taking office. The only previous experience Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had was in the military. Herbert Hoover previously served as the Secretary of Commerce. Everyone else served in elected public office before becoming president, such as being vice president, a member of Congress, or a state or territorial governor. Fifteen presidents also served as vice president. Six of them – John Adams (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1800), Martin Van Buren (1836), Richard Nixon (1968), George H. W. Bush (1988), and Joe Biden (2020) – began their first term after winning an election. The remaining nine began their first term as president according to the presidential line of succession after the intra-term death or resignation of their predecessor. Of these, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson were subsequently elected to a full term of their own, while John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, and Gerald Ford were not. Ford's accession to the presidency is unique in American history in that he became vice president through the process prescribed by the Twenty-fifth Amendment rather than by winning an election, thus making him the only U.S. president to not have been elected to either office. Sixteen presidents had previously served in the U.S. Senate, including four of the five who served between 1945 and 1974. However, only three were incumbent senators at the time they were elected president (Warren G. Harding in 1920, John F. Kennedy in 1960, and Barack Obama in 2008). Eighteen presidents had earlier served in the House of Representatives. However, only one was a sitting representative when elected to the presidency (James A. Garfield in 1880). Four of the last seven presidents (Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) have been governors of a state. Geographically, these presidents were from either very large states (Reagan from California, Bush from Texas) or from a state south of the Mason–Dixon line and east of Texas (Carter from Georgia, Clinton from Arkansas). In all, sixteen presidents have been former governors, including seven who were incumbent governors at the time of their election to the presidency. The most common job experience, occupation or profession of U.S. presidents has been lawyer; 26 presidents had served as attorneys. Twenty-two presidents were also in the military. Eight presidents had served as Cabinet Secretaries, with five of the six presidents who served between 1801 and 1841 having held the office of U.S. Secretary of State. After leaving office, one president, William Howard Taft, served as Chief Justice of the United States. Two others later served in Congress – John Quincy Adams in the House and Andrew Johnson in the Senate. Technology and media Advances in technology and media have also affected presidential campaigns. The invention of radio and then television gave way to reliance upon national political advertisements such as Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 "Daisy", Ronald Reagan's 1984 "Morning in America", and George H. W. Bush's 1988 "Revolving Door", all of which became major factors. In 1992, George H. W. Bush's promise of "Read my lips: no new taxes" was extensively used in the commercials of Bill Clinton and Bush's other opponents with significant effect during the campaign. Since the development of the internet in the mid-90s, Internet activism has also become an invaluable component of presidential campaigns, especially since 2000. The internet was first used in the 1996 presidential elections, but primarily as a brochure for the candidate online. It was only used by a few candidates and there is no evidence of any major effect on the outcomes of that election cycle. In 2000, both candidates (George W. Bush and Al Gore) created, maintained, and updated campaign websites. But it was not until the 2004 presidential election cycle was the potential value of the internet seen. By the summer of 2003, ten people competing in the 2004 presidential election had developed campaign websites. Howard Dean's campaign website from that year was considered a model for all future campaign websites. His website played a significant role in his overall campaign strategy. It allowed his supporters to read about his campaign platform and provide feedback, donate, get involved with the campaign, and connect with other supporters. A Gallup poll from January 2004 revealed that 49 percent of Americans have used the internet to get information about candidates, and 28 percent said they use the internet to get this information frequently. Use of the Internet for grassroots fundraising by US presidential candidates such as Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders established it as an effective political tool. In 2016, the use of social media was a key part of Donald Trump campaign. Trump and his opinions were established as constantly "trending" by posting multiple times per day, and his strong online influence was constantly reinforced. Internet channels such as YouTube were used by candidates to share speeches and ads and to attack candidates by uploading videos of gaffes. A study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in conjunction with Princeton Survey Research Associates in November 2010 shows that 54% of adults in the United States used the internet to get information about the 2010 midterm elections and about specific candidates. This represents 73% of adult internet users. The study also showed that 22 percent of adult internet users used social networking sites or Twitter to get information about and discuss the elections and 26 percent of all adults used cell phones to learn about or participate in campaigns. E-campaigning, as it has come to be called, is subject to very little regulation. On March 26, 2006, the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to "not regulate political communication on the Internet, including emails, blogs and the creating of Web sites". This decision made only paid political ads placed on websites subject to campaign finance limitations. A comment was made about this decision by Roger Alan Stone of Advocacy Inc. which explains this loophole in the context of a political campaign: "A wealthy individual could purchase all of the e-mail addresses for registered voters in a congressional district ... produce an Internet video ad, and e-mail it along with a link to the campaign contribution page ... Not only would this activity not count against any contribution limits or independent expenditure requirements; it would never even need to be reported." A key part of the United States presidential campaigns is the use of media and framing. Candidates are able to frame their opponents and current issues in ways to affect the way voters will see events and the other presidential candidates. This is known as "priming". For example, during the 2016 presidential election Donald Trump successfully influenced the way voters thought about Hillary Clinton, by encouraging voters to think of Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" or a "Nasty woman". The media, and Trump, tended to focus on what was presented as her email scandal, and when voters thought about her that is what came to mind. Trump played into voters' anti-government interests, while Clinton appealed to the future of the country for the better of future children. Trump was unexpectedly successful at connecting to what a huge portion of Americans perceived as their interests. It was not always Clinton's strong point, but that may not have been her fault. Americans vote based on whether they feel the country is in a time of gain or a time of loss. Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again", made Americans feel like the country was in a time of loss, willing to take a risk on voting for a candidate without political experience. Trump was convincing with his anti-everything rhetoric, and his message reached the electorate with the help of the media. Over half of the media coverage on Trump was focused on where he stood in the race, while only 12% focused on issues, stances, and political beliefs (including problematic comments). Criticism The presidential election process is controversial, with critics arguing that it is inherently undemocratic, and discourages voter participation and turnout in many areas of the country. Because of the staggered nature of the primary season, voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and other small states which traditionally hold their primaries and caucuses first in January usually have a major impact on the races. Campaign activity, media attention, and voter participation are usually higher in these states, as the candidates attempt to build momentum and generate a bandwagon effect in these early primaries. Conversely, voters in California and other large states which traditionally hold their primaries last in June usually end up having no say in who the presidential candidates will be. The races are usually over by then, and thus the campaigns, the media, and voters have little incentive to participate in these late primaries. As a result, more states vie for earlier primaries to claim a greater influence in the process. However, compressing the primary calendar in this way limits the ability of lesser-known candidates to effectively corral resources and raise their visibility among voters, especially when competing with better-known candidates who have more financial resources and the institutional backing of their party's establishment. Primary and caucus reform proposals include a National Primary held on a single day; or the Interregional Primary Plan, where states would be grouped into six regions, and each region would rotate every election on who would hold their primaries first. With the primary races usually over before June, the political conventions have mostly become scripted, ceremonial affairs. As the drama has left the conventions, and complaints grown that they were scripted and dull pep rallies, public interest and viewership has fallen off. After having offered gavel-to-gavel coverage of the major party conventions in the mid-20th century, the Big Three television networks now devote only approximately three hours of coverage (one hour per night). Critics also argue that the Electoral College is archaic and inherently undemocratic. With all states, except Maine and Nebraska, using a winner-takes-all system, both the Democratic and the Republican candidates are almost certain to win all the electoral votes from those states whose residents predominantly vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, respectively. This encourages presidential candidates to focus exponentially more time, money, and energy campaigning in a few so-called "swing states", states in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support. Such swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are inundated with campaign visits, saturation television advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts by party organizers, and debates. Meanwhile, candidates and political parties have no incentive to mount nationwide campaign efforts, or work to increase voter turnout, in predominantly Democratic Party "safe states" like California, Illinois or New York or predominantly Republican Party "safe states" like Wyoming, Alabama or Utah. In practice, the winner-takes-all system also both reinforces the country's two-party system and decreases the importance of third and minor political parties. Furthermore, a candidate can win the electoral vote without securing the greatest amount of the national popular vote, such as during the 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 elections. It would even be possible in theory to secure the necessary 270 electoral votes from only the twelve most populous states and ignore the rest of the country. Proposed changes to the election process In 1844, Representative Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio proposed an amendment to the constitution that would replace the electoral college system with a lot system. The Joint Resolution called for each state to elect, by a simple majority, a presidential candidate of said state. Each state would notify Congress of the presidential election results. Congress would then inscribe the name of every state on uniform balls, equal to the number of said state's members of Congress, and deposit into a box. In a joint session of Congress, a ball would be drawn, and the elected candidate of the state of which is written on the drawn ball would be named president. A second ball would immediately be drawn after, and that state's candidate would be named vice-president. The resolution did not pass the House. Representative Vinton proposed an identical amendment in 1846. Again, it was unsuccessful. The driving force behind the introduction of the resolution is unclear, as there is no recorded debate for either proposal. Other constitutional amendments, such as the Every Vote Counts Amendment, have been proposed seeking to replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote, which proponents argue would increase turnout and participation. Those opposed to such measures argue that using the popular vote method would result in the eight to ten most populated states having full control in electing the president, leaving the other 40-plus states with almost no influence. Other proposed reforms include the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an interstate compact without Congressional authorization, whereby individual participating states agree to allocate their electors based on the winner of the national popular vote, instead of voting their respective statewide results. Another proposal is for every state to simply adopt the District system used by Maine and Nebraska: give two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one electoral vote to the winner of each Congressional district. The Automatic Plan would replace the Electors with an automatic tallying of votes to eliminate the faithless elector affecting the outcome of the election. The Proportional Plan, often compared to the District Plan, would distribute electoral votes in each state in proportion to the popular vote, introducing third party effects in election outcomes. The House Plan would require a constitutional amendment to allocate electors based on the House apportionment alone to lessen small state advantage. Direct election plans and bonus plans both place a higher valuation on the popular vote for president. Electoral college results This is a table of electoral college results. Included are candidates who received at least one electoral vote or at least five percent of the popular vote. Faithless electors and unpledged electors are denoted by a pink background. Maps of results Popular vote results Historically, presidents seeking re-election with a job approval rating of 50 percent or higher among American voters have easily won a second term, while those with an approval rating of less than 50 percent have lost the election. This election was in many ways unique in American history: several different factions of the Democratic-Republican Party were named after the last names of the candidates in this race, and nominated their own candidates. As no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives chose Adams to be president. Voter turnout Voter turnout in the 2004 and 2008 elections showed a noticeable increase over the turnout in 1996 and 2000. Prior to 2004, voter turnout in presidential elections had been decreasing while voter registration, measured in terms of voting age population (VAP) by the U.S. census, has been increasing. The VAP figure, however, includes persons ineligible to vote – mainly non-citizens and ineligible felons – and excludes overseas eligible voters. Opinion is mixed on whether this decline was due to voter apathy or an increase in ineligible voters on the rolls. The difference between these two measures are illustrated by analysis of turnout in the 2004 and 2008 elections. Voter turnout from the 2004 and 2008 election was "not statistically different", based on the voting age population used by a November 2008 U.S. census survey of 50,000 households. If expressed in terms of vote eligible population (VEP), the 2008 national turnout rate was 61.7% from 131.3 million ballots cast for president, an increase of over 1.6 percentage points over the 60.1% turnout rate of 2004, and the highest since 1968. Financial disclosures Prior to 1967, many presidential candidates disclosed assets, stock holdings, and other information which might affect the public trust. In that year, Republican candidate George W. Romney went a step further and released his tax returns for the previous twelve years. Since then, many presidential candidates – including all major-party nominees from 1980 to 2012 – have released some of their returns, although few of the major party nominees have equaled or exceeded George Romney's twelve. The Tax History Project – a project directed by Joseph J. Thorndike and established by the nonprofit Tax Analysts group – has compiled the publicly released tax returns of presidents and presidential candidates (including primary candidates). In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke with tradition, becoming the only major-party candidate since Gerald Ford in 1976 to not make any of his full tax returns public. Trump gave a reason that he was being audited by the IRS. However, no law or precedent prevents a person from releasing their tax returns while under audit. President Richard M. Nixon released his tax returns while they were under audit. Presidential coattails Presidential elections are held on the same date as those for all the seats in the House of Representatives, the full terms for 33 or 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate, the governorships of several states, and many state and local elections. Presidential candidates tend to bring out supporters who then vote for their party's candidates for those other offices. These other candidates are said to ride on the presidential candidates' coattails. Voter turnout is also generally higher during presidential election years than either midterm election years or odd-numbered election years. Since the end of World War II, there have been a total of five American presidential elections that had significant coattail effects: Harry Truman in 1948, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Barack Obama in 2008. However, Truman's win in 1948 and Eisenhower's victory in 1952 remain the last two elections in which the same party both won the White House and elected enough members of the House take control of it from its opponents. The last American presidential election in which the same party both won the White House and elected enough members of the Senate to take control of it from its opponents was Barack Obama's win in 2008. Comparison with other U.S. general elections See also Outline of American politics § Elections American election campaigns in the 19th century Sexism in American political elections Lists List of presidents of the United States List of United States presidential candidates List of United States presidential election results by state List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin List of United States presidential elections by popular vote margin Party systems First Party System, Federalists vs Democratic-Republicans, 1790s–1820s Second Party System, Whigs vs Democrats, 1830s–1850s Third Party System, Republicans vs Democrats, 1850s–1890s Fourth Party System, Republicans vs Democrats, 1890s–1930s; "Progressive Era" Fifth Party System, Republicans vs Democrats, 1930s–1980s Sixth Party System, Republicans vs Democrats, 1980s–present Comparing elected candidate to popular vote or margins List of United States presidential candidates by number of votes received List of United States presidential elections by popular vote margin List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote Statistical forecasts Electoral-vote.com FiveThirtyEight PollyVote 270towin.com Notes References Further reading Congressional Quarterly. Presidential elections, 1789-1996 (1997) online Roseboom, Eugene H. A history of presidential elections (1957) online Schlesinger, Arthur. Jr., ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008 (2011) 3 vol and 11 vol editions; detailed analysis of each election, with primary documents; online v. 1. 1789-1824 -- v. 2. 1824-1844 -- v. 3. 1848-1868 -- v. 4. 1872-1888 -- v. 5. 1892-1908 -- v. 6. 1912-1924 -- v. 7. 1928-1940 -- v. 8. 1944-1956 -- v. 9. 1960-1968 -- v. 10. 1972-1984 -- v. 11. 1988-2001 External links The American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara: 52,000+ Presidential Documents) Electoral College Box Scores Teaching about Presidential Elections Archived August 23, 2021, at the Wayback Machine All the maps since 1840 by counties (in French) Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections History of U.S. Presidential Elections: 1789–2004 Graphic election results from 1952 to 2008 broken down by state Archived December 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (Java Applet) A history of the presidency from the point of view of Vermont Discusses history of American presidential elections with two states as opposite "poles", Vermont, and Alabama The Living Room Candidate: A Compilation of Presidential Television Ads Presidential Elections, from History.com A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825 Archived July 25, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Presidential Elections: Resource Guides from the Library of Congress Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect from Congressional Research Service U.S. Election Statistics: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress "Electoral Votes" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905. This is a tabulation of the electoral votes by election year, and also includes the results for vice president. Statistical forecasts 17 poll composite Archived April 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Princeton Election Consortium Gallup

Harry_S._Truman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to 1945 and briefly in 1945 as the 34th vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated Congress. Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri, and during World War I fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, which was aimed at reducing waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Truman was elected vice president in the 1944 presidential election and assumed the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. It was only when Truman assumed the presidency that he was informed about the ongoing Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Truman authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy by working closely with Britain. Truman staunchly denounced isolationism. He energized the New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election, despite a divided Democratic Party, and won a surprise victory against Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey that secured his own presidential term. Truman presided over the onset of the Cold War in 1947. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift and Marshall Plan in 1948. With the involvement of the US in the Korean War of 1950–1953, South Korea repelled the invasion by North Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed Congress pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in federal agencies and desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces. Investigations revealed corruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but, with poor polling, he chose not to run. Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long thought that his retirement years were financially difficult for Truman, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents, but evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it while still president. When he left office, Truman's administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, scholars rank Truman in the first quartile of American presidents. In addition, critical reassessment of his presidency has improved his reputation among historians and the general population. Early life, family, and education Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. He was named for his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, "S", is not an abbreviation of one particular name. Rather, it honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, a somewhat common practice in the American South at the time. A brother, John Vivian, was born soon after Harry, followed by sister Mary Jane. While Truman's ancestry was primarily English, he also had some Scots-Irish, German, and French ancestry. John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old, when they moved to a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri. They next moved to Belton and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre (240 ha) farm in Grandview. When Truman was six, his parents moved to Independence, Missouri, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. He did not attend a conventional school until he was eight years old. While living in Independence, he served as a Shabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them on Shabbat that their religion prevented them from doing on that day. Truman was interested in music, reading, history, and math, all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her. Truman learned to play the piano at age seven and took lessons from Mrs. E.C. White, a well-respected teacher in Kansas City. He got up at five o'clock every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen, becoming quite a skilled player. Truman worked as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City; his father had many friends active in the Democratic Party who helped young Harry to gain his first political position. After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, Truman took classes at Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but stopped after a year. Segregation was practiced and largely accepted where Truman grew up. While he would later come to support civil rights, early letters of the young Truman reflected his upbringing and prejudices against African and Asian Americans. Working career Truman was employed briefly in the mailroom of The Kansas City Star before making use of his business college experience to obtain a job as a timekeeper for construction crews on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which required him to sleep in workmen's camps along the rail lines. Truman and his brother Vivian later worked as clerks at the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City. In 1906, Truman returned to the Grandview farm, where he lived until entering the army in 1917. During this period, he courted Bess Wallace. He proposed in 1911, but she turned him down. Believing Wallace turned him down because he did not have much money, Truman later said he intended to propose again, but he wanted to have a better income than that earned by a farmer. In fact, Wallace later told Truman she did not intend to marry, but if she did, it would be to him. Still determined to improve his finances, during his years on the farm and immediately after World War I, Truman became active in several business ventures. These included a lead and zinc mine near Commerce, Oklahoma, a company that bought land and leased the oil drilling rights to prospectors, and speculation in Kansas City real estate. Truman occasionally derived some income from these enterprises, but none proved successful in the long term. Truman is the only president since William McKinley (elected in 1896) who did not earn a college degree. In addition to having briefly attended business college, from 1923 to 1925 he took night courses toward an LL.B. at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) but dropped out after losing reelection as county judge. He was informed by attorneys in the Kansas City area that his education and experience were probably sufficient to receive a license to practice law but did not pursue it because he won election as presiding judge. While serving as president in 1947, Truman applied for a law license. A friend who was an attorney began working out the arrangements, and informed Truman that his application had to be notarized. By the time Truman received this information he had changed his mind, so he never followed up. After the discovery of Truman's application in 1996 the Missouri Supreme Court issued him a posthumous honorary law license. Military service National Guard Due to the lack of funds for college, Truman considered attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, which had no tuition, but he was refused an appointment because of poor eyesight. He enlisted in the Missouri National Guard in 1905 and served until 1911 in the Kansas City-based Battery B, 2nd Missouri Field Artillery Regiment, in which he attained the rank of corporal. At his induction, his eyesight without glasses was unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left (past the standard for legal blindness). The second time he took the test, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart. He was described as 5 feet 10 inches tall, gray eyed, dark haired and of light complexion. World War I When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, Truman rejoined Battery B, successfully recruiting new soldiers for the expanding unit, for which he was elected as their first lieutenant. Before deployment to France, Truman was sent for training to Camp Doniphan, Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma, when his regiment was federalized as the 129th Field Artillery. The regimental commander during its training was Robert M. Danford, who later served as the Army's Chief of Field Artillery. Truman recalled that he learned more practical, useful information from Danford in six weeks than from six months of formal Army instruction, and when Truman served as an artillery instructor, he consciously patterned his approach on Danford's. Truman also ran the camp canteen with Edward Jacobson, a clothing store clerk he knew from Kansas City. Unlike most canteens funded by unit members, which usually lost money, the canteen operated by Truman and Jacobson turned a profit, returning each soldier's initial $2 investment and $10,000 in dividends in six months. At Fort Sill, Truman met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, nephew of Tom Pendergast, a Kansas City political boss, a connection that had a profound influence on Truman's later life. In mid-1918, about one million soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were in France. Truman was promoted to captain effective April 23, and in July became commander of the newly arrived Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division. Battery D was known for its discipline problems, and Truman was initially unpopular because of his efforts to restore order. Despite attempts by the men to intimidate him into quitting, Truman succeeded by making his corporals and sergeants accountable for discipline. He promised to back them up if they performed capably and reduce them to private if they did not. In an event memorialized in battery lore as "The Battle of Who Run", his soldiers began to flee during a sudden night attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains; Truman succeeded at ordering his men to stay and fight, using profanity from his railroad days. The men were so surprised to hear Truman use such language that they immediately obeyed. Truman's unit joined in a massive prearranged assault barrage on September 26, 1918, at the opening of the Meuse–Argonne offensive. They advanced with difficulty over pitted terrain to follow the infantry, and set up an observation post west of Cheppy. On September 27, Truman saw through his binoculars an enemy artillery battery deploying across a river in a position which would allow them to fire upon the neighboring 28th Division. Truman's orders limited him to targets facing the 35th Division, but he ignored this and patiently waited until the Germans had walked their horses well away from their guns, ensuring they could not relocate out of range of Truman's battery. He then ordered his men to open fire, and their attack destroyed the enemy battery. His actions were credited with saving the lives of 28th Division soldiers who otherwise would have come under fire from the Germans. Truman was given a dressing down by his regimental commander, Colonel Karl D. Klemm, who threatened to convene a court-martial, but Klemm never followed through, and Truman was not punished. In other action during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, Truman's battery provided support for George S. Patton's tank brigade, and fired some of the last shots of the war on November 11, 1918. Battery D did not lose any men while under Truman's command in France. To show their appreciation for his leadership, his men presented him with a large loving cup upon their return to the United States after the war. The war was a transformative experience in which Truman manifested his leadership qualities. He had entered the service in 1917 as a family farmer who had worked in clerical jobs that did not require the ability to motivate and direct others, but during the war, he gained leadership experience and a record of success that greatly enhanced and supported his post-war political career in Missouri. Truman was brought up in the Presbyterian and Baptist churches, but avoided revivals and sometimes ridiculed revivalist preachers. He rarely spoke about religion, which to him, primarily meant ethical behavior along traditional Protestant lines. Truman once wrote in a letter to his future wife, Bess: "You know that I know nothing about Lent and such things..." Most of the soldiers he commanded in the war were Catholics, and one of his close friends was the 129th Field Artillery's chaplain, Monsignor L. Curtis Tiernan. The two remained friends until Tiernan's death in 1960. Developing leadership and interpersonal skills that later made him a successful politician helped Truman get along with his Catholic soldiers, as he did with soldiers of other Christian denominations and the unit's Jewish members. Officers' Reserve Corps Truman was honorably discharged from the Army as a captain on May 6, 1919. In 1920, he was appointed a major in the Officers Reserve Corps. He became a lieutenant colonel in 1925 and a colonel in 1932. In the 1920s and 1930s he commanded 1st Battalion, 379th Field Artillery Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division. After promotion to colonel, Truman advanced to command of the regiment. After his election to the U.S. Senate, Truman was transferred to the General Assignments Group, a holding unit for less active officers, although he had not been consulted in advance. Truman protested his reassignment, which led to his resumption of regimental command. He remained an active reservist until the early 1940s. Truman volunteered for active military service during World War II, but was not accepted, partly because of age, and partly because President Franklin D. Roosevelt desired that senators and congressmen who belonged to the military reserves support the war effort by remaining in Congress, or by ending their active duty service and resuming their congressional seats. He was an inactive reservist from the early 1940s until retiring as a colonel in the then redesignated U.S. Army Reserve on January 20, 1953. Military awards and decorations Truman was awarded a World War I Victory Medal with two battle clasps (for St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne) and a Defensive Sector Clasp. He was also the recipient of two Armed Forces Reserve Medals. Politics Jackson County judge After his wartime service, Truman returned to Independence, where he married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919. The couple had one child, Mary Margaret Truman. Shortly before the wedding, Truman and Jacobson opened a haberdashery together at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. After brief initial success, the store went bankrupt during the recession of 1921. Truman did not pay off the last of the debts from that venture until 1935, when he did so with the aid of banker William T. Kemper, who worked behind the scenes to enable Truman's brother Vivian to buy Truman's $5,600 promissory note during the asset sale of a bank that had failed in the Great Depression. The note had risen and fallen in value as it was bought and sold, interest accumulated and Truman made payments, so by the time the last bank to hold it failed, it was worth nearly $9,000. Thanks to Kemper's efforts, Vivian Truman was able to buy it for $1,000. Jacobson and Truman remained close friends even after their store failed, and Jacobson's advice to Truman on Zionism later played a role in the U.S. Government's decision to recognize Israel. With the help of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected in 1922 as County Court judge of Jackson County's eastern district—Jackson County's three-judge court included judges from the western district (Kansas City), the eastern district (the county outside Kansas City), and a presiding judge elected countywide. This was an administrative rather than a judicial court, similar to county commissions in many other jurisdictions. Truman lost his 1924 reelection campaign in a Republican wave led by President Calvin Coolidge's landslide election to a full term. Two years selling automobile club memberships convinced him that a public service career was safer for a family man approaching middle age, and he planned a run for presiding judge in 1926. Truman won the job in 1926 with the support of the Pendergast machine, and he was re-elected in 1930. As presiding judge, Truman helped coordinate the Ten Year Plan, which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads and construction of a new Wight and Wight-designed County Court building. Also in 1926, he became president of the National Old Trails Road Association, and during his term he oversaw dedication of 12 Madonna of the Trail monuments to honor pioneer women. In 1933, Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of the Civil Works Administration) at the request of Postmaster General James Farley. This was payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federal patronage jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It also created a relationship between Truman and Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins and assured Truman's avid support for the New Deal. U.S. Senator from Missouri After serving as a county judge, Truman wanted to run for governor of Missouri or Congress, but Pendergast rejected these ideas. Truman then thought he might serve out his career in some well-paying county sinecure; circumstances changed when Pendergast reluctantly backed him as the machine's choice in the 1934 Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate from Missouri, after Pendergast's first four choices had declined to run. In the primary, Truman defeated Congressmen John J. Cochran and Jacob L. Milligan with the solid support of Jackson County, which was crucial to his candidacy. Also critical were the contacts he had made statewide in his capacity as a county official, member of the Freemasons, military reservist, and member of the American Legion. In the general election, Truman defeated incumbent Republican Roscoe C. Patterson by nearly 20 percentage points in a continuing wave of pro-New Deal Democrats elected during the Great Depression. Truman assumed office with a reputation as "the Senator from Pendergast". He referred patronage decisions to Pendergast but maintained that he voted with his own conscience. He later defended the patronage decisions by saying that "by offering a little to the machine, [he] saved a lot". In his first term, Truman spoke out against corporate greed and the dangers of Wall Street speculators and other moneyed special interests attaining too much influence in national affairs. Though he served on the high-profile Appropriations and Interstate Commerce Committees, he was largely ignored by President Roosevelt and had trouble getting calls returned from the White House. During the U.S. Senate election in 1940, U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan (former opponent Jacob Milligan's brother) and former governor Lloyd Stark both challenged Truman in the Democratic primary. Truman was politically weakened by Pendergast's imprisonment for income tax evasion the previous year; the senator had remained loyal, having claimed that Republican judges (not the Roosevelt administration) were responsible for the boss's downfall. St. Louis party leader Robert E. Hannegan's support of Truman proved crucial; he later brokered the deal that put Truman on the national ticket. In the end, Stark and Milligan split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Senate Democratic primary and Truman won by a total of 8,000 votes. In the November election, Truman defeated Republican Manvel H. Davis by 51–49 percent. As senator, Truman opposed both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Two days after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Truman said: If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. This quote without its last part later became a staple in Soviet and later Russian propaganda as "evidence" of an American conspiracy to destroy the country. Truman Committee In late 1940, Truman traveled to various military bases. The waste and profiteering he saw led him to use his chairmanship of the Committee on Military Affairs Subcommittee on War Mobilization to start investigations into abuses while the nation prepared for war. A new special committee was set up under Truman to conduct a formal investigation; the White House supported this plan rather than weather a more hostile probe by the House of Representatives. The main mission of the committee was to expose and fight waste and corruption in the gigantic government wartime contracts. Truman's initiative convinced Senate leaders of the necessity for the committee, which reflected his demands for honest and efficient administration and his distrust of big business and Wall Street. Truman managed the committee "with extraordinary skill" and usually achieved consensus, generating heavy media publicity that gave him a national reputation. Activities of the Truman Committee ranged from criticizing the "dollar-a-year men" hired by the government, many of whom proved ineffective, to investigating a shoddily built New Jersey housing project for war workers. In March 1944, Truman attempted to probe the expensive Manhattan Project but was persuaded by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to discontinue with the investigation.: 634  The committee reportedly saved as much as $15 billion (equivalent to $260 billion in 2023), and its activities put Truman on the cover of Time magazine. According to the Senate's historical minutes, in leading the committee, "Truman erased his earlier public image as an errand-runner for Kansas City politicos", and "no senator ever gained greater political benefits from chairing a special investigating committee than did Missouri's Harry S. Truman." Vice presidency (1945) Roosevelt's advisors knew that Roosevelt might not live out a fourth term and that his vice president would very likely become the next president. Henry Wallace had served as Roosevelt's vice president for four years and was popular on the left, but he was viewed as too far to the left and too friendly to labor for some of Roosevelt's advisers. The President and several of his confidantes wanted to replace Wallace with someone more acceptable to Democratic Party leaders. Outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman Frank C. Walker, incoming chairman Hannegan, party treasurer Edwin W. Pauley, Bronx party boss Ed Flynn, Chicago Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly, and lobbyist George E. Allen all wanted to keep Wallace off the ticket. Roosevelt told party leaders that he would accept either Truman or Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. State and city party leaders strongly preferred Truman, and Roosevelt agreed. Truman had repeatedly said that he was not in the race and that he did not want the vice presidency, and he remained reluctant. One reason was that his wife and sister Mary Jane were both on his Senate staff payroll, and he feared negative publicity. Truman did not campaign for the vice-presidential spot, though he welcomed the attention as evidence that he had become more than the "Senator from Pendergast". Truman's nomination was dubbed the "Second Missouri Compromise" and was well received. The Roosevelt–Truman ticket achieved a 432–99 electoral-vote victory in the election, defeating the Republican ticket of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and running mate Governor John Bricker of Ohio. Truman was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 1945. After the inauguration, Truman called his mother, who instructed him, "Now you behave yourself." Truman's brief vice-presidency was relatively uneventful. Truman mostly presided over the Senate and attended parties and receptions. He kept the same offices from his Senate years, mostly only using the Vice President's official office in the Capitol to greet visitors. Truman was the first vice president to have a Secret Service agent assigned to him. Truman envisioned the office as a liaison between the Senate and the president. On April 10, 1945, Truman cast his only tie-breaking vote as president of the Senate, against a Robert A. Taft amendment that would have blocked the postwar delivery of Lend-Lease Act items contracted for during the war. Roosevelt rarely contacted him, even to inform him of major decisions; the president and vice president met alone together only twice during their time in office. In one of his first acts as vice president, Truman created some controversy when he attended the disgraced Pendergast's funeral. He brushed aside the criticism, saying simply, "He was always my friend and I have always been his." He had rarely discussed world affairs or domestic politics with Roosevelt; he was uninformed about major initiatives relating to the war and the top-secret Manhattan Project, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb. In an event that generated negative publicity for Truman, he was photographed with actress Lauren Bacall sitting atop the piano at the National Press Club as he played for soldiers. Truman had been vice president for 82 days when President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Truman, presiding over the Senate, as usual, had just adjourned the session for the day and was preparing to have a drink in House Speaker Sam Rayburn's office when he received an urgent message to go immediately to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him that her husband had died after a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Truman asked her if there was anything he could do for her; she replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now!" He was sworn in as president at 7:09 p.m. in the West Wing of the White House, by Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone. Presidency (1945–1953) At the White House, Truman replaced Roosevelt holdovers with old confidants. The White House was badly understaffed with no more than a dozen aides; they could barely keep up with the heavy workflow of a greatly expanded executive department. Truman acted as his own chief of staff on a daily basis, as well as his own liaison with Congress—a body he already knew very well. He was not well prepared to deal with the press, and never achieved the jovial familiarity of FDR. Filled with latent anger about all the setbacks in his career, he bitterly mistrusted journalists. He saw them as enemies lying in wait for his next careless miscue. Truman was a very hard worker, often to the point of exhaustion, which left him testy, easily annoyed, and on the verge of appearing unpresidential or petty. In terms of major issues, he discussed them in depth with top advisors. He mastered the details of the federal budget as well as anyone. Truman was a poor speaker reading a text. However, his visible anger made him an effective stump speaker, denouncing his enemies as his supporters hollered back at him "Give Em Hell, Harry!" Truman surrounded himself with his old friends and appointed several to high positions that seemed well beyond their competence, including his two secretaries of the treasury, Fred Vinson and John Snyder. His closest friend in the White House was his military aide Harry H. Vaughan, who knew little of military or foreign affairs and was criticized for trading access to the White House for expensive gifts. Truman loved to spend as much time as possible playing poker, telling stories and sipping bourbon. Alonzo Hamby notes that: ... to many in the general public, gambling and bourbon swilling, however low-key, were not quite presidential. Neither was the intemperant "give 'em hell" campaign style nor the occasional profane phrase uttered in public. Poker exemplified a larger problem: the tension between his attempts at an image of leadership necessarily a cut above the ordinary and an informality that at times appeared to verge on crudeness. First term (1945–1949) Assuming office On his first full day, Truman told reporters: "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me." Truman asked all the members of Roosevelt's cabinet to remain in place, but he soon replaced almost all of them, especially with old friends from his Senate days. Dropping atomic bombs on Japan Truman benefited from a honeymoon period from the success in defeating Nazi Germany in Europe and the nation celebrated V-E Day on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday. Although Truman was told briefly on the afternoon of April 12 that the United States had a new, highly destructive weapon, it was not until April 25 that Secretary of War Henry Stimson told him the details: We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. Truman journeyed to Berlin for the Potsdam Conference with Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He was there when he learned the Trinity test—the first atomic bomb—on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that he was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project—having learned about it through atomic espionage long before Truman did. In August, the Japanese government refused surrender demands as specifically outlined in the Potsdam Declaration. With the invasion of Japan imminent, Truman approved the schedule for dropping the two available bombs. Truman maintained the position that attacking Japan with atomic bombs saved many lives on both sides; a military estimate for the invasion of Japan submitted to Truman by Herbert Hoover indicated that an invasion could take at least a year and result in 500,000 to 1,000,000 Allied casualties. A study done for the staff of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson by William Shockley estimated that invading Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities if Japanese civilians participated in the defense of Japan. The U.S. Army Service Forces estimated in their document "Redeployment of the United States Army after the Defeat of Germany," that between June 1945 and December 1946 the Army would be required to furnish replacements for 43,000 dead and evacuated wounded every month during this period. From analysis of the replacement schedule and projected strengths in overseas theaters, it suggested that Army losses alone in those categories, excluding the Navy and Marine Corps, would be approximately 863,000 through the first part of 1947, of whom 267,000 would be killed or missing. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki three days later, leaving 105,000 dead. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 9 and invaded Manchuria. Japan agreed to surrender the following day. Supporters of Truman's decision argue that, given the tenacious Japanese defense of the outlying islands, the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives of Allied prisoners, Japanese civilians, and combatants on both sides that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. Some modern criticism has argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary, given that conventional attacks or a demonstrative bombing of an uninhabited area might have forced Japan's surrender, and therefore assert that the attack constituted a crime of war. In 1948 Truman defended his decision to use atomic bombs: As President of the United States, I had the fateful responsibility of deciding whether or not to use this weapon for the first time. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But the President cannot duck hard problems—he cannot pass the buck. I made the decision after discussions with the ablest men in our Government, and after long and prayerful consideration. I decided that the bomb should be used to end the war quickly and save countless lives—Japanese as well as American. Truman continued to strongly defend himself in his memoirs in 1955–1956, stating many lives could have been lost had the United States invaded mainland Japan without the atomic bombs. In 1963, he stood by his decision, telling a journalist "it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the U.S. side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life." Labor unions, strikes and economic issues The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy. The costs of the war effort had been enormous, and Truman was intent on diminishing military services as quickly as possible to curtail the government's military expenditures. The effect of demobilization on the economy was unknown, proposals were met with skepticism and resistance, and fears existed that the nation would slide back into depression. In Roosevelt's final years, Congress began to reassert legislative power and Truman faced a congressional body where Republicans and conservative southern Democrats formed a powerful "conservative coalition" voting bloc. The New Deal had greatly strengthened labor unions and they formed a major base of support for Truman's Democratic Party. The Republicans, working with big business, made it their highest priority to weaken those unions. The unions had been promoted by the government during the war and tried to make their gains permanent through large-scale strikes in major industries. Meanwhile, price controls were slowly ending, and inflation was soaring. Truman's response to the widespread dissatisfaction was generally seen as ineffective. When a national rail strike threatened in May 1946, Truman seized the railroads in an attempt to contain the issue, but two key railway unions struck anyway. The entire national railroad system was shut down, immobilizing 24,000 freight trains and 175,000 passenger trains a day. For two days, public anger mounted. His staff prepared a speech that Truman read to Congress calling for a new law, whereby railroad strikers would be drafted into the army. As he concluded his address, he was handed a note that the strike had been settled on presidential terms; nevertheless, a few hours later, the House voted to draft the strikers. The bill died in the Senate. Approval rating falls; Republicans win Congress in 1946 The president's approval rating dropped from 82 percent in the polls in January 1946 to 52 percent by June. This dissatisfaction led to large Democratic losses in the 1946 midterm elections, and Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. When Truman dropped to 32 percent in the polls, Democratic Arkansas Senator William Fulbright suggested that Truman resign; the president said he did not care what Senator "Halfbright" said. Truman cooperated closely with the Republican leaders on foreign policy but fought them bitterly on domestic issues. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by the Taft–Hartley Act which was enacted over Truman's veto. Truman twice vetoed bills to lower income tax rates in 1947. Although the initial vetoes were sustained, Congress overrode his veto of a tax cut bill in 1948. In one notable instance of bipartisanship, Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which replaced the secretary of state with the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate as successor to the president after the vice president. Proposes "Fair Deal" liberalism As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition, advocating for national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. He broke with the New Deal by initiating an aggressive civil rights program which he termed a moral priority. His economic and social vision constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "Fair Deal." Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. The Solid South rejected civil rights as those states still enforced segregation. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted. Many of the New Deal programs that persisted during Truman's presidency have since received minor improvements and extensions. Marshall Plan, Cold War, and China As a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman supported Roosevelt's policy in favor of the creation of the United Nations and included Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the first UN General Assembly. With the Soviet Union expanding its sphere of influence through Eastern Europe, Truman and his foreign policy advisors took a hard line against the USSR. In this, he matched U.S. public opinion which quickly came to believe the Soviets were intent upon world domination. Although he had little personal expertise on foreign matters, Truman listened closely to his top advisors, especially George Marshall and Dean Acheson. The Republicans controlled Congress in 1947–1948, so he worked with their leaders, especially Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg, chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee. He won bipartisan support for both the Truman Doctrine, which formalized a policy of Soviet containment, and the Marshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe. To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing that communism flourishes in economically deprived areas. As part of the U.S. Cold War strategy, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) and creating the U.S. Air Force. The act also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Council. On November 4, 1952, Truman authorized the official, though at the time, confidential creation of the National Security Agency (NSA). Truman did not know what to do about China, where the Nationalists and Communists were fighting a large-scale civil war. The Nationalists had been major wartime allies and had large-scale popular support in the United States, along with a powerful lobby. General George Marshall spent most of 1946 in China trying to negotiate a compromise but failed. He convinced Truman the Nationalists would never win on their own and a very large-scale U.S. intervention to stop the Communists would significantly weaken U.S. opposition to the Soviets in Europe. By 1949, the Communists under Mao Zedong had won the civil war, the United States had a new enemy in Asia, and Truman came under fire from conservatives for "losing" China. Berlin airlift On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three Western-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had not negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the U.S. occupation zone in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone to West Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approved Ernest Bevin's plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On June 25, the Allies initiated the Berlin Airlift, a campaign to deliver food, coal and other supplies using military aircraft on a massive scale. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to accomplish it. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948. Recognition of Israel Truman had long taken an interest in the history of the Middle East and was sympathetic to Jews who sought to re-establish their ancient homeland in Mandatory Palestine. As a senator, he announced support for Zionism; in 1943 he called for a homeland for those Jews who survived the Nazi regime. However, State Department officials were reluctant to offend the Arabs, who were opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state in the large region long populated and dominated culturally by Arabs. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal warned Truman of the importance of Saudi Arabian oil in another war; Truman replied he would decide his policy on the basis of justice, not oil. U.S. diplomats with experience in the region were opposed, but Truman told them he had few Arabs among his constituents. Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from communism, as promised by the Truman Doctrine. Weary of both the convoluted politics of the Middle East and pressure by Jewish leaders, Truman was undecided on his policy and skeptical about how the Jewish "underdogs" would handle power. He later cited as decisive in his recognition of the Jewish state the advice of his former business partner, Eddie Jacobson, a non-religious Jew whom Truman absolutely trusted. Truman decided to recognize Israel over the objections of Secretary of State George Marshall, who feared it would hurt relations with the populous Arab states. Marshall believed the paramount threat to the United States was the Soviet Union and feared Arab oil would be lost to the United States in the event of war; he warned Truman the United States was "playing with fire with nothing to put it out". Truman recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after it declared itself a nation. Of his decision to recognize the Israeli state, Truman said in an interview years later: "Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives." Calls for Civil Rights Under his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Fair Employment Practices Committee was created to address racial discrimination in employment, and in 1946, Truman created the President's Committee on Civil Rights. On June 29, 1947, Truman became the first president to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The speech took place at the Lincoln Memorial during the NAACP convention and was carried nationally on radio. In that speech, Truman laid out the need to end discrimination, which would be advanced by the first comprehensive, presidentially proposed civil rights legislation. Truman on "civil rights and human freedom", declared: It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens … it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. … [And] When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans … Our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers which stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright. There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry, or religion, or race, or color. We must not tolerate such limitations on the freedom of any of our people and on their enjoyment of basic rights which every citizen in a truly democratic society must possess. Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in making the public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court. We must ensure that these rights – on equal terms – are enjoyed by every citizen. To these principles I pledge my full and continued support. Many of our people still suffer the indignity of insult, the harrowing fear of intimidation, and, I regret to say, the threat of physical injury and mob violence. Prejudice and intolerance in which these evils are rooted still exist. The conscience of our nation, and the legal machinery which enforces it, have not yet secured to each citizen full freedom from fear. In February 1948, Truman delivered a formal message to Congress requesting adoption of his 10-point program to secure civil rights, including anti-lynching, voter rights, and elimination of segregation. "No political act since the Compromise of 1877," argued biographer Taylor Branch, "so profoundly influenced race relations; in a sense it was a repeal of 1877." 1948 election The 1948 presidential election is remembered for Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory. In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36 percent, and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the general election. At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to unify the party with a vague civil rights plank in the party platform. His intention was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook his efforts. A sharp address given by Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis—as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses—convinced the convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress, which Truman called the "Do Nothing Congress," and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it." Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home—but not for housing. They are strong for labor—but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage—the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all—but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine—for people who can afford them ... They think American standard of living is a fine thing—so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it. Within two weeks of the 1948 convention Truman issued Executive Order 9981, ending racial discrimination in the Armed Services, and Executive Order 9980 to end discrimination in federal agencies. Truman took a considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned the loss of Dixiecrat support might seriously weaken the party. South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a Dixiecrat ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "states' rights" proponents. This rebellion on the right was matched by one on the left, led by Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. The Democratic Party was splitting three ways and victory in November seemed unlikely. For his running mate, Truman accepted Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley, though he really wanted Justice William O. Douglas, who turned down the nomination. Truman's political advisors described the political scene as "one unholy, confusing cacophony." They told Truman to speak directly to the people, in a personal way. Campaign manager William J. Bray said Truman took this advice, and spoke personally and passionately, sometimes even setting aside his notes to talk to Americans "of everything that is in my heart and soul." The campaign was a 21,928-mile (35,290 km) presidential odyssey. In a personal appeal to the nation, Truman crisscrossed the United States by train; his "whistle stop" speeches from the rear platform of the presidential car, Ferdinand Magellan, came to represent his campaign. His combative appearances captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops in Michigan drew a combined half-million people; a full million turned out for a New York City ticker-tape parade. The large crowds at Truman's whistle-stop events were an important sign of a change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps. It continued reporting Republican Thomas Dewey's apparent impending victory as a certainty. The three major polling organizations stopped polling well before the November 2 election date—Roper in September, and Crossley and Gallup in October—thus failing to measure the period when Truman appears to have surged past Dewey. In the end, Truman held his progressive Midwestern base, won most of the Southern states despite the civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical states, notably Ohio, California, and Illinois. The final tally showed the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the Chicago Tribune with a huge headline proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman." Full elected term (1949–1953) Truman's second inauguration on January 20, 1949 was the first ever televised nationally. Hydrogen bomb decision The Soviet Union's atomic bomb project progressed much faster than had been expected, and they detonated their first bomb on August 29, 1949. Over the next several months there was an intense debate that split the U.S. government, military, and scientific communities regarding whether to proceed with the development of the far more powerful hydrogen bomb. The debate touched on matters from technical feasibility to strategic value to the morality of creating a massively destructive weapon. On January 31, 1950, Truman made the decision to go forward on the grounds that if the Soviets could make an H-bomb, the United States must do so as well and stay ahead in the nuclear arms race. The development achieved fruition with the first U.S. H-bomb test on October 31, 1952, which was officially announced by Truman on January 7, 1953. Korean War On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army under Kim Il-sung invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts. Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy could not enforce such a measure. Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing troops under the UN flag led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur. Truman decided he did not need formal authorization from Congress, believing that most legislators supported his position; this would come back to haunt him later when the stalemated conflict was dubbed "Mr. Truman's War" by legislators. Rockoff writes that "President Truman responded quickly to the June invasion by authorizing the use of U.S. troops and ordering air strikes and a naval blockade. He did not, however, seek a declaration of war, or call for full mobilization, in part because such actions might have been misinterpreted by Russia and China. Instead, on July 19 he called for partial mobilization and asked Congress for an appropriation of $10 billion for the war." Cohen writes that: "All of Truman's advisers saw the events in Korea as a test of American will to resist Soviet attempts to expand their power, and their system. The United States ordered warships to the Taiwan Strait to prevent Mao's forces from invading Taiwan and mopping up the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's army there." However, on July 3, 1950, Truman did give Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas a draft resolution titled "Joint Resolution Expressing Approval of the Action Taken in Korea". Lucas stated Congress supported the use of force, the formal resolution would pass but was unnecessary, and the consensus in Congress was to acquiesce. Truman responded he did not want "to appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers," and added that it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced." By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea under UN auspices were able to stabilize the situation. Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his secretary of defense, Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with the retired General Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—liberation of North Korea. UN forces led by General Douglas MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the Battle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces marched north, toward the Yalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices. China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the 38th parallel, then recovered. By early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of Yalu, but MacArthur promoted his plan to Republican House leader Joseph Martin, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned further escalation of the war might lead to open conflict with the Soviet Union, which was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet aircrew). Therefore, on April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur from his commands. The dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for his impeachment from, among others, Senator Robert A. Taft. Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. Others, including Eleanor Roosevelt and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly supported Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress, a speech the president called "a bunch of damn bullshit." Truman and his generals considered the use of nuclear weapons against the Chinese army, but ultimately chose not to escalate the war to a nuclear level. The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting in 1953. In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22 percent according to Gallup polls, which is the all-time lowest approval mark for a sitting U.S. president, though it was matched by Richard Nixon in 1974. Worldwide defense The escalation of the Cold War was highlighted by Truman's approval of NSC 68, a secret statement of foreign policy. It called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the United States and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. The document was drafted by Paul Nitze, who consulted State and Defense officials and was formally approved by President Truman as the official national strategy after the war began in Korea. It called for partial mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets. The plan called for strengthening Europe, weakening the Soviet Union, and building up the United States both militarily and economically. Truman was a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which established a formal peacetime military alliance with Canada and democratic European nations of the Western Bloc following World War II. The treaty establishing it was widely popular and easily passed the Senate in 1949; Truman appointed General Eisenhower as commander. NATO's goals were to contain Soviet expansion in Europe and to send a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals. The United States, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, and Canada were the original treaty signatories. The alliance resulted in the Soviets establishing a similar alliance, called the Warsaw Pact. General Marshall was Truman's principal adviser on foreign policy matters, influencing such decisions as the U.S. choice against offering direct military aid to Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist Chinese forces in the Chinese Civil War against their communist opponents. Marshall's opinion was contrary to the counsel of almost all of Truman's other advisers; Marshall thought propping up Chiang's forces would drain U.S. resources necessary for Europe to deter the Soviets. When the communists took control of the mainland, establishing the People's Republic of China and driving the nationalists to Taiwan, Truman would have been willing to maintain some relationship between the United States and the new government, but Mao was unwilling. Truman announced on January 5, 1950, that the United States would not engage in any dispute involving the Taiwan Strait, and that he would not intervene in the event of an attack by the PRC. On June 27, 1950, after the outbreak of fighting in Korea, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent further conflict between the communist government on the China mainland and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. Truman usually worked well with his top staff – the exceptions were Israel in 1948 and Spain in 1945–1950. Truman was a very strong opponent of Francisco Franco, the right-wing dictator of Spain. He withdrew the American ambassador (but diplomatic relations were not formally broken), kept Spain out of the UN, and rejected any Marshall Plan financial aid to Spain. However, as the Cold War escalated, support for Spain was strong in Congress, the Pentagon, the business community and other influential elements especially Catholics and cotton growers. Liberal opposition to Spain had faded after the Wallace element broke with the Democratic Party in 1948; the CIO became passive on the issue. As Secretary of State Acheson increased his pressure on Truman, the president stood alone in his administration as his own top appointees wanted to normalize relations. When China entered the Korean War and pushed American forces back, the argument for allies became irresistible. Admitting he was "overruled and worn down," Truman relented and sent an ambassador and made loans available. Soviet espionage and McCarthyism In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He said an underground communist network had worked inside the U.S. government during the 1930s, of which Chambers had been a member, along with Alger Hiss, until recently a senior State Department official. Chambers did not allege any spying during the Truman presidency. Although Hiss denied the allegations, he was convicted in January 1950 for perjury for denials under oath. The Soviet Union's success in exploding an atomic weapon in 1949 and the fall of the nationalist Chinese the same year led many Americans to conclude subversion by Soviet spies was responsible and to demand that communists be rooted out from the government and other places of influence. Hoping to contain these fears, Truman began a "loyalty program" with Executive Order 9835 in 1947. However, Truman got himself into deeper trouble when he called the Hiss trial a "red herring". Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the State Department of harboring communists and rode the controversy to political fame, leading to the Second Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism. McCarthy's stifling accusations made it difficult to speak out against him. This led Truman to call McCarthy "the greatest asset the Kremlin has" by "torpedo[ing] the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States." Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government were believed by 78 percent of the people in 1946 and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952. Truman was reluctant to take a more radical stance, because he felt it could threaten civil liberties and add to a potential hysteria. At the same time, he felt political pressure to indicate a strong national security. It is unclear to what extent President Truman was briefed of the Venona intercepts, which discovered widespread evidence of Soviet espionage on the atom bomb project and afterward. Truman continued his own loyalty program for some time while believing the issue of communist espionage was overstated. In 1949, Truman described American communist leaders, whom his administration was prosecuting, as "traitors". Truman would later state in private conversations with friends that his creation of a loyalty program had been a "terrible" mistake. In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which was passed by Congress just after the start of the Korean War and was aimed at controlling communists in America. Truman called the Act, "the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press, and assembly since the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798," a "mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step toward totalitarianism". His veto was immediately overridden by Congress and the Act became law. In the mid-1960s, parts of the Act were found to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. Blair House and assassination attempt In 1948, Truman ordered an addition to the exterior of the White House: a second-floor balcony in the south portico, which came to be known as the Truman Balcony. The addition was unpopular. Some said it spoiled the appearance of the south facade, but it gave the First Family more living space. Meanwhile, structural deterioration and a near-imminent collapse of the White House led to a comprehensive dismantling and rebuilding of the building's interior from 1949 to 1952. Architectural and engineering investigations during 1948 deemed it unsafe for occupancy. Truman, his family, and the entire residence staff were relocated across the street into Blair House during the renovations. As the newer West Wing, including the Oval Office, remained open, Truman walked to and from his work across the street each morning and afternoon. On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman, Leslie Coffelt. Before he died, the officer shot and killed Torresola. Collazo was wounded and stopped before he entered the house. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952. Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. To try to settle the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed a plebiscite in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. Nearly 82 percent of the people voted in favor of a new constitution for the Estado Libre Asociado, a continued 'associated free state.' Steel and coal strikes In response to a labor/management impasse arising from bitter disagreements over wage and price controls, Truman instructed his Secretary of Commerce, Charles W. Sawyer, to take control of a number of the nation's steel mills in April 1952. Truman cited his authority as commander in chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions for the war in Korea. The Supreme Court found Truman's actions unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order in a major separation-of-powers decision, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952). The 6–3 decision, which held that Truman's assertion of authority was too vague and was not rooted in any legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a court composed entirely of justices appointed by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable defeats of his presidency. Scandals and controversies In 1950, the Senate, led by Estes Kefauver, investigated numerous charges of corruption among senior administration officials, some of whom received fur coats and deep freezers in exchange for favors. A large number of employees of the Internal Revenue Bureau (today the IRS) were accepting bribes; 166 employees either resigned or were fired in 1950, with many soon facing indictment. When Attorney General J. Howard McGrath fired the special prosecutor in early 1952 for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath. Truman submitted a reorganization plan to reform the IRB; Congress passed it, but corruption was a major issue in the 1952 presidential election. On December 6, 1950, Washington Post music critic Paul Hume wrote a critical review of a concert by the president's daughter Margaret Truman: Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality ... [she] cannot sing very well ... is flat a good deal of the time—more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years ... has not improved in the years we have heard her ... [and] still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish. Truman wrote a scathing response: I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an 'eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.' It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry. Truman was criticized by many for the letter. However, he pointed out that he wrote it as a loving father and not as the president. In 1951, William M. Boyle, Truman's longtime friend and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was forced to resign after being charged with financial corruption. Civil rights A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. Speaking about this report, international developments have to be taken into account, for with the UN Charter being passed in 1945, the question of whether international human rights law could be applicable also on an inner-land basis became crucial in the United States. Though the report acknowledged such a path was not free from controversy in the 1940s United States, it nevertheless raised the possibility for the UN-Charter to be used as a legal tool to combat racial discrimination in the United States. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from southern Democrats in the runup to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman and were major factors in his decision to issue Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, requiring equal opportunity in the armed forces. In the early 1950s after several years of planning, recommendations and revisions between Truman, the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of the military, the services became racially integrated. Truman later appointed people who aligned with civil rights agenda. He appointed fellow colonel and civil rights icon Blake R. Van Leer to the board of the United States Naval Academy and UNESCO who had a focus to work against racism through influential statements on race. Truman made a historic move in 1949, when he gave a recess appointment to William H. Hastie for the Court of Appeals, the first African-American federal judge in the United States. Executive Order 9980, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race. A third, in 1951, established the Committee on Government Contract Compliance, which ensured defense contractors did not discriminate because of race. Administration and cabinet Foreign policy From 1947 until 1989, world affairs were dominated by the Cold War, in which the U.S. and its allies faced the Soviet Union and its allies. There was no large-scale fighting but instead several local civil wars as well as the ever-present threat of a catastrophic nuclear war. Unlike Roosevelt, Truman distrusted Stalin and the Soviet Union, and did not have FDR's faith in the UN to soften major tensions. Nevertheless, he cooperated in terms of dividing control over Germany. Soviet efforts to use its army to control politics in Eastern Europe and Iran angered Washington. The final break came in 1947 when the Labour government in London could no longer afford to help Greece fight communism and asked Washington to assume responsibility for suppressing the Communist uprising there. The result was the Truman Doctrine of 1947–48 which made it national policy to contain Communist expansion. Truman was supported by the great majority of Democrats, after he forced out the Henry Wallace faction that wanted good terms with Moscow. Truman's policy had the strong support of most Republicans, who led by Senator Arthur Vandenberg overcame the isolationist Republicans led by Senator Robert A. Taft. In 1948, Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which supplied Western Europe—including Germany—with US$13 billion in reconstruction aid. Stalin vetoed any participation by East European nations. A similar program was operated by the United States to restore the Japanese economy. The U.S. actively sought allies, which it subsidized with military and economic "foreign aid", as well as diplomatic support. The main diplomatic initiative was the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, committing the United States to nuclear defense of Western Europe. The result was a peace in Europe, coupled with the fear of Soviet invasion and a reliance on American protection. The United States operated a worldwide network of bases for its Army, Navy and Air Force, with large contingents stationed in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Washington had a weak intelligence community before 1942, and the Soviets had a very effective network of spies. The solution was to create the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947. Economic and propaganda warfare against the communist world became part of the American toolbox. The containment policy was developed by State Department official George Kennan in 1947. Kennan characterized the Soviet Union as an aggressive, anti-Western power that necessitated containment, a characterization which would shape US foreign policy for decades to come. The idea of containment was to match Soviet aggression with force wherever it occurred while not using nuclear weapons. The policy of containment created a bipolar, zero-sum world where the ideological conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated geopolitics. Due to the antagonism on both sides and each countries' search for security, a tense worldwide contest developed between the two states as the two nations' governments vied for global supremacy militarily, culturally, and politically. The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global hot wars. Instead there were proxy wars, fought by client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. The most important was Korean War (1950–1953), a stalemate that drained away Truman's base of support. Truman made five international trips during his presidency. 1952 election In 1951, the United States ratified the 22nd Amendment, making a president ineligible for election to a third term or for election to a second full term after serving more than two remaining years of a term of a previously elected president. The latter clause did not apply to Truman's situation in 1952 because of a grandfather clause exempting the incumbent president. Therefore, he seriously considered running for another term in 1952 and left his name on the ballot in the New Hampshire primary. However, all his close advisors, pointing to his age, his failing abilities, and his poor showing in the polls, talked him out of it. At the time of the 1952 New Hampshire primary (March 11, 1952), no candidate had won Truman's backing. His first choice, Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, had declined to run. Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson had also turned Truman down, Vice President Barkley was considered too old, and Truman distrusted and disliked Senator Kefauver, who had made a name for himself by his investigations of the Truman administration scandals. Truman let his name be entered in the New Hampshire primary by supporters. The highly unpopular Truman was handily defeated by Kefauver; 18 days later the president formally announced he would not seek a second full term. Truman was eventually able to persuade Stevenson to run, and the governor gained the nomination at the 1952 Democratic National Convention. Eisenhower gained the Republican nomination, with Senator Nixon as his running mate, and campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures: "Korea, communism and corruption". He pledged to clean up the "mess in Washington," and promised to "go to Korea." Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively in the general election, ending 20 years of Democratic presidents. While Truman and Eisenhower had previously been on good terms, Truman felt annoyed that Eisenhower did not denounce Joseph McCarthy during the campaign. Similarly, Eisenhower was outraged when Truman accused the former general of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party. Post-presidency (1953–1972) Financial situation Before being elected as Jackson County judge, Truman had earned little money, and was in debt from the failure of his haberdashery. His election as senator in 1934 carried with it a salary of $10,000 (equivalent to $228,000 in 2023), high for the time, but the need to maintain two homes, with one in expensive Washington, Margaret Truman's college expenses, and contributions to the support of needy relatives, left the Trumans little extra money. He likely had around $7,500 (equivalent to $127,000 in 2023) in cash and government bonds when nominated for vice president. His finances were transformed by his accession to the presidency, which carried with it a salary of $75,000 (equivalent to $1,269,000 in 2023), which was increased to $100,000 (equivalent to $1,281,000 in 2023) in 1949. This was a higher salary than any Major League Baseball star, except Joe DiMaggio, who also earned $100,000 in his final two seasons (1950 and 1951). Beginning in 1949, the president was also granted a $50,000 (equivalent to $640,000 in 2023) expense allowance, which was initially tax-free, and did not have to be accounted for. Although the allowance became taxable later in his presidency, Truman never reported it on his tax return, and converted some of the funds to cash he kept in the White House safe and later in a safe deposit box in Kansas City. Upon leaving the presidency, Truman returned to Independence, Missouri, to live at the Wallace home he and Bess had shared for years with her mother. In a biography that contributed greatly to the myth that Truman was near penury after departing the White House, David McCullough stated that the Trumans had little alternative than to return to Independence, for his only income was his army pension of $112.56 per month (equivalent to $1,282 in 2023), and he had only been able to save a modest amount from his salary as president. In February 1953, Truman signed a book deal for his memoirs, and in a draft will dated December of that year listed land worth $250,000 (equivalent to $2,847,000 in 2023), savings bonds of the same amount, and cash of $150,000 (equivalent to $1,708,000 in 2023). He wrote, "Bonds, land, and cash all come from savings of presidential salary and free expense account. It should keep you and Margaret comfortably." The writing of the memoirs was a struggle for Truman, and he went through a dozen collaborators during the project, not all of whom served him well, but he remained heavily involved in the result. For the memoirs, Truman received a payment of $670,000 (equivalent to $7,620,522 in 2023). The memoirs were a commercial and critical success. They were published in two volumes: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions (1955) and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope (1956). Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package; President Truman himself ensured that former servants of the executive branch of government received similar support. In 1953, however, there was no such benefit package for former presidents, and Congressional pensions were not approved until 1946, after Truman had left the Senate, so he received no pension for his Senate service. Truman, behind the scenes, lobbied for a pension, writing to congressional leaders that he had been near penury but for the sale of family farmlands, and in February 1958, in the first televised interview of a former US president that aired on CBS, Truman claimed that "If I hadn't inherited some property that finally paid things through, I'd be on relief right now." That year, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 (equivalent to $264,014 in 2023) yearly pension to each former president, and it is likely that Truman's claim to be in difficult financial straits played a role in the law's enactment. The only other living former president at the time, Herbert Hoover, also took the pension, even though he did not need the money; reportedly, he did so to avoid embarrassing Truman. Truman's net worth improved further in 1958 when he and his siblings sold most of the family farm to a Kansas City real estate developer. When he was serving as a county judge, Truman borrowed $31,000 (equivalent to $353,030 in 2023) by mortgaging the farm to the county school fund, which was legal at the time. When Republicans controlled the court in 1940, they foreclosed in an effort to embarrass Truman politically, and his mother and sister Mary Jane had to vacate the home. In 1945, Truman organized a syndicate of supporters who purchased the farm with the understanding that they would sell it back to the Trumans. Harry and Vivian Truman purchased 87 acres in 1945, and Truman purchased another portion in 1946. In January 1959, Truman calculated his net worth as $1,046,788.86 (equivalent to $10,941,000 in 2023), including a share in the Los Angeles Rams football team. Nevertheless, the Trumans always lived modestly in Independence, and when Bess Truman died in 1982, almost a decade after her husband, the house was found to be in poor condition due to deferred maintenance. Bess Truman's personal papers were made public in 2009, including financial records and tax returns. The myth that Truman had been in straitened circumstances after his presidency was slow to dissipate; Paul Campos wrote in 2021, "The current, 20,000-plus-word Wikipedia biography of Truman goes so far as to assert that, because his earlier business ventures had failed, Truman left the White House with 'no personal savings.' Every aspect of this narrative is false." Truman Library and academic positions Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had organized his own presidential library, but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar had not been enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library, which he donated to the federal government to maintain and operate—a practice adopted by his successors. He testified before Congress to have money appropriated to have presidential papers copied and organized. He was proud of the bill's passage in 1957. Max Skidmore, in his book on the life of former presidents, wrote that Truman was a well-read man, especially in history. Skidmore added that the presidential papers legislation and the founding of his library "was the culmination of his interest in history. Together they constitute an enormous contribution to the United States—one of the greatest of any former president." Truman taught occasional courses at universities, including Yale, where he was a Chubb Fellow visiting lecturer in 1958. In 1962, Truman was a visiting lecturer at Canisius College. Politics Truman supported Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House in 1956, although he had initially favored Democratic governor W. Averell Harriman of New York. He continued to campaign for Democratic senatorial candidates for many years. In 1960 Truman gave a public statement announcing he would not attend the Democratic Convention that year, citing concerns about the way that the supporters of John F. Kennedy had gained control of the nominating process, and called on Kennedy to forgo the nomination for that year. Kennedy responded with a press conference where he bluntly rebuffed Truman's advice. Despite his supportive stance on civil rights during his presidency, Truman expressed criticism of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. In 1960, he stated that he believed the sit-in movement to be part of a Soviet plot. Truman's statement garnered a response from Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote a letter to the former president stating that he was "baffled" by the accusation, and demanded a public apology. Truman would later criticize King following the Selma march in 1965, believing the protest to be "silly" and claiming that it "can't accomplish a darn thing except to attract attention." In 1963, Truman voiced his opposition to interracial marriage, believing that daughters of white people would never love someone of an opposite color. On 22 December 1963 Truman published an article in The Washington Post entitled ‘Limit CIA Role to Intelligence' where he said that “for some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government” and that he “never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations”. He concluded that “there is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it”. Upon turning 80 in 1964, Truman was feted in Washington, and addressed the Senate, availing himself of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted privilege of the floor. Medicare After a fall in his home in late 1964, Truman's physical condition declined. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor the former president's fight for government health care while in office. Death On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure, fell into a coma, and died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88. At the time of his death, Truman had been the oldest living president, a distinction he held from the time of Hoover's death in 1964. Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral. Bess Truman died in 1982 and was buried next to her husband at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. Tributes and legacy Legacy When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22% in the Gallup Poll of February 1952 was lower than Richard Nixon's 24% in August 1974, the month that Nixon resigned. American public feeling towards Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years; as early as 1962, a poll of 75 historians conducted by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. ranked Truman among the "near great" presidents. The period following his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation of his legacy among both historians and members of the public. Truman died when the nation was consumed with crises in Vietnam and Watergate, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career. In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House. This public reassessment of Truman was aided by the popularity of a book of reminiscences which Truman had told to journalist Merle Miller beginning in 1961, with the agreement that they would not be published until after Truman's death. Truman had his latter-day critics as well. After a review of information available to Truman about the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism. In 2010, historian Alonzo Hamby concluded that "Harry Truman remains a controversial president." However, Truman has fared well in polls ranking the presidents, consistently being listed in the top ten; this includes a 2022 poll by the Siena College Research Institute, which placed him in seventh. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused Truman advocates to claim vindication for Truman's decisions in the postwar period. According to Truman biographer Robert Dallek, "His contribution to victory in the cold war without a devastating nuclear conflict elevated him to the stature of a great or near-great president." The 1992 publication of David McCollough's favorable biography of Truman further cemented the view of Truman as a highly regarded chief executive. According to historian Daniel R. McCoy in his book on the Truman presidency: Harry Truman himself gave a strong and far-from-incorrect impression of being a tough, concerned and direct leader. He was occasionally vulgar, often partisan, and usually nationalistic ... On his own terms, Truman can be seen as having prevented the coming of a third world war and having preserved from Communist oppression much of what he called the free world. Yet clearly he largely failed to achieve his Wilsonian aim of securing perpetual peace, making the world safe for democracy, and advancing opportunities for individual development internationally. Sites and honors In 1956, Truman traveled to Europe with his wife. In Britain, he received an honorary degree in Civic Law from Oxford University and met with Winston Churchill. In 1959, he was given a 50-year award by the Masons, recognizing his longstanding involvement: he was initiated on February 9, 1909, into the Belton Freemasonry Lodge in Missouri. In 1911, he helped establish the Grandview Lodge, and he served as its first Worshipful Master. In September 1940, during his Senate re-election campaign, Truman was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri; Truman said later that the Masonic election assured his victory in the general election. In 1945, he was made a 33° Sovereign Grand Inspector General and an Honorary Member of the supreme council at the Supreme Council A.A.S.R. Southern Jurisdiction Headquarters in Washington D.C. Truman was also a member of Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Two of his relatives were Confederate soldiers. In 1975, the Truman Scholarship was created as a federal program to honor U.S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy. In 1983 the Harry S. Truman State Office Building in Jefferson City was completed. In 2004, the President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering was created as a distinguished postdoctoral three-year appointment at Sandia National Laboratories. In 2001, the University of Missouri established the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs to advance the study and practice of governance. The University of Missouri's Missouri Tigers athletic programs have an official mascot named Truman the Tiger. On July 1, 1996, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University—to mark its transformation from a teachers' college to a highly selective liberal arts university and to honor the only Missourian to become president. A member institution of the City Colleges of Chicago, Harry S. Truman College in Chicago, Illinois, is named in his honor for his dedication to public colleges and universities. In 2000, the headquarters for the State Department, built in the 1930s but never officially named, was dedicated as the Harry S. Truman Building. Despite Truman's attempt to curtail the naval carrier arm, which led to the 1949 Revolt of the Admirals, an aircraft carrier is named after him. The USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was christened on September 7, 1996. The 129th Field Artillery Regiment is designated "Truman's Own" in recognition of Truman's service as commander of its D Battery during World War I. In 1991, Truman was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol. In 2006, Thomas Daniel, grandson of the Trumans, accepted a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame to honor his late grandfather. In 2007, John Truman, a nephew, accepted a star for Bess Truman. The Walk of Fame is in Marshfield, Missouri, a city Truman visited in 1948. In 2004, international relations scholars Rachel Kleinfeld and Matthew Spence founded the Truman National Security Project. In 2013, they launched the Truman Center for National Policy. Both organizations were named after Truman. A statue of Harry S. Truman was installed in the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., on September 29, 2022, as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. On the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in 2023, South Korea erected a statue of Truman in Dabu-dong, Gyeongsangbuk-do to commemorate him sending US troops to defend the country. Other sites associated with Truman include: Harry S. Truman National Historic Site includes the Wallace House at 219 N. Delaware in Independence and the family farmhouse at Grandview, Missouri (Truman sold most of the farm for Kansas City suburban development including the Truman Corners Shopping Center). Harry S. Truman Birthplace State Historic Site is the house where Truman was born and spent 11 months in Lamar, Missouri. Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum – The Presidential library in Independence Harry S. Truman Little White House – Truman's winter getaway at Key West, Florida See also Electoral history of Harry S. Truman "Harry Truman", a 1975 hit song by the band Chicago List of members of the American Legion List of presidents of the United States Truman (film) Truman Day Truman National Security Project Notes References Bibliography Biographies of Truman Burnes, Brian (2003). Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books. ISBN 978-0-9740009-3-0. Dallek, Robert (2008). Harry S. Truman. New York: Times Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-6938-9. Daniels, Jonathan (1998). The Man of Independence. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1190-9. Donovan, Robert J. (1983). Tumultuous Years: 1949–1953. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-01619-2. Ferrell, Robert H. (1994). Harry S. Truman: A Life. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1050-0. Hamby, Alonzo L., ed. (1974). Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath & Co. ISBN 978-0-669-87080-0. Hamby, Alonzo L. (1995). Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504546-8. Judis, John B. (2014). Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16109-5. Freeland, Richard M. (1970). The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-8147-2576-4. Giglio, James N. (2001). Truman in Cartoon and Caricature. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8138-1806-1. Kirkendall, Richard S. (1989). Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia. Boston: G. K. Hall Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8161-8915-1. McCoy, Donald R. (1984). The Presidency of Harry S. Truman. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0252-0. McCullough, David (1992). Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-86920-5. Margolies, Daniel S. ed. A Companion to Harry S. Truman (2012); 614pp; emphasis on historiography; see Sean J. Savage, "Truman in Historical, Popular, and Political Memory," pp. 9–25. excerpt Miller, Merle (1974). Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. New York: Putnam Publishing. ISBN 978-0-399-11261-4. Mitchell, Franklin D. (1998). Harry S. Truman and the News Media: Contentious Relations, Belated Respect. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1180-1. Oshinsky, David M. (2004). "Harry Truman". In Brinkley, Alan; Dyer, Davis (eds.). The American Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-38273-6. Pietrusza, David (2011). 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America. New York: Union Square Press. ISBN 978-1-4027-6748-7. Scarborough, Joe (2020). Saving Freedom. New York: Harper Collins. Books Ambrose, Stephen E. (1983). Eisenhower: 1890–1952. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-44069-5. Binning, William C.; Esterly, Larry E.; Sracic, Paul A. (1999). 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Truman, each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs The Presidents: Truman Archived December 26, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, an American Experience documentary Works by or about Harry S. Truman at the Internet Archive Works by Harry S. Truman at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) "Life Portrait of Harry S. Truman", from C-SPAN's American presidents: Life Portraits, October 18, 1999 Appearances on C-SPAN Harry S. Truman Personal Manuscripts Harry S. Truman at IMDb Works by Harry S. Truman at Project Gutenberg 1948 election episode in CNN's Race for the White House This article incorporates public domain material from Records of the Adjutant General's Office. National Archives and Records Administration.

Margaret_Truman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Truman

Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008) was an American classical soprano, actress, journalist, radio and television personality, writer, and New York socialite. She was the only child of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. While her father was president during the years 1945 to 1953, Margaret regularly accompanied him on campaign trips, such as the 1948 countrywide whistle-stop campaign lasting several weeks. She also appeared at important White House and political events during those years, being a favorite with the media. After graduating from George Washington University in 1946, she embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano, beginning with a concert appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1947. She appeared in concerts with orchestras throughout the United States and in recitals throughout the U.S. through 1956. She made recordings for RCA Victor, and made television appearances on programs like What's My Line? and The Bell Telephone Hour. In 1957, one year after her marriage, Truman abandoned her singing career to pursue a career as a journalist and radio personality, when she became the co-host of the program Weekday with Mike Wallace. She also wrote articles as an independent journalist, for a variety of publications in the 1960s and 1970s. She later became the successful author of a series of murder mysteries, and a number of works on U.S. First Ladies and First Families, including well-received biographies of her father, President Harry S. Truman and mother Bess Truman. She was married to journalist Clifton Daniel, managing editor of The New York Times. The couple had four sons, and were prominent New York socialites who often hosted events for the New York elite. Early life Mary Margaret was born at 219 North Delaware Street in Independence, Missouri, on February 17, 1924, and was christened Mary Margaret Truman (for her aunt Mary Jane Truman and maternal grandmother Margaret Gates Wallace), but was called Margaret from early childhood. She took voice and piano lessons as a child (at the encouragement of her father, who famously played piano) and attended public school in Independence until her father's 1934 election to the United States Senate, after which her education was split between public schools in Independence and Gunston Hall School, a private school for girls in Washington, D.C. In 1942, she matriculated at George Washington University, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and international relations in 1946. In June 1944, she christened the battleship USS Missouri at Brooklyn Navy Yard, and spoke again in 1986 at the ship's recommissioning. She studied singing with Estelle Liebling, the voice teacher of Beverly Sills, in New York City. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. His Vice President Harry Truman assumed the presidency when Margaret was 21. Career Singing When Truman was 16 years old, she began taking voice lessons in Independence from Mrs. Thomas J. Strickler, a family friend. After classical vocal training, Truman's singing career began with a debut radio recital in March 1947, followed shortly thereafter with her professional concert debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She sang professionally for the next decade, appearing with major American orchestras and giving several national concert tours. Some of her credits include concert appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the National Symphony Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Louis Symphony among others. While she never performed in staged operas, she did perform opera arias in concert. Her performances were mainly of both sacred and secular art songs, lieder, and works from the concert soprano repertoire. In 1951 and 1952, RCA Victor issued two albums by Truman, one of classical selections, the other of American art songs. She also made recordings of German lieder for NBC. A 1951 Time Magazine cover featured Truman with a single musical note floating by her head. She performed on stage, radio, and television through 1956. At the beginning of her career, critical reviews of Truman's singing were positive, polite or diplomatic in tone, with some later reviewers speculating that negative opinions were held back out of deference for her father as a current sitting United States President. This practice was broken in 1950 when Washington Post music critic Paul Hume wrote that Truman was "extremely attractive on the stage... [but] cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time. And still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish." The review angered President Truman (who was dealing that same day with the sudden death of his childhood friend and White House Press Secretary Charlie Ross), who wrote to Hume, "Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!" Hume wanted to publish the letter, but Washington Post publisher Philip Graham vetoed the idea. However, Hume showed the letter to a number of his colleagues, including Milton Berliner, music critic of the rival Washington Times Herald, which published a story. The Post was then forced to acknowledge the letter, which drew international headlines, becoming a minor scandal for the Truman administration. Reviewers after that felt more free to be honest in their reviews of her performances, with mixed criticism for her singing thereafter. Acting, radio, and journalism Truman's professional acting debut occurred April 26, 1951. She co-starred with James Stewart in the "Jackpot" episode of Screen Directors Playhouse on NBC radio. On March 17, 1952, Truman was guest soloist on The Railroad Hour in a presentation of the operetta Sari. Truman also performed on the NBC Radio program The Big Show. There she met writer Goodman Ace, who gave her advice and pointers; Ace became a lifelong friend, advising Truman even after The Big Show. She became part of the team of NBC Radio's Weekday show that premiered in 1955, shortly after its Monitor program made its debut. Paired with Mike Wallace, she presented news and interviews aimed at a female listening audience. She appeared several times as a panelist (and twice as a mystery guest) on the game show What's My Line? and guest-starred more than once on NBC's The Martha Raye Show. In 1957, she sang and played piano on The Gisele MacKenzie Show. Writing Truman's full-length biography of her father, published shortly before his 1972 death, was critically acclaimed. She also wrote a personal biography of her mother and histories of the White House and its inhabitants (including first ladies and pets). Truman published regularly into her eighties. Novels From 1980 to 2011, 25 books in the Capital Crimes series of murder mysteries, most set in and around Washington, D.C., were published under Margaret Truman's name. Professional ghostwriter Donald Bain (1935–2017) acknowledged in the March 14, 2014, issue of Publishers Weekly that he had written "27 novels in the Margaret Truman Capital Crimes series (mostly bylined by Truman, my close collaborator – my name is on only the most recent entries, released after her death)." In 2000, another ghostwriter, William Harrington, had claimed in a self-written obituary before his apparent suicide that Margaret Truman and others were his clients. Institutions She served on the board of directors for the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and the Board of Governors of the Roosevelt Institute, and served as a Trustee for her alma mater. Personal life On April 21, 1956, Truman married Clifton Daniel, a reporter for The New York Times and later its managing editor, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence; he died in 2000. They had four sons: Clifton Truman Daniel (born June 5, 1957), Director of Public Relations for Harry S Truman College. William Wallace Daniel (May 19, 1959 – September 4, 2000), a psychiatric social worker and researcher at Columbia University. He died after being struck by a taxicab in New York City. Harrison Gates Daniel (born 1963) Thomas Washington Daniel (born 1966) Popular culture Italian dress designer Micol Fontana, who designed Truman’s wedding gown, was invited to be a surprise guest on the TV show What's My Line? in New York City, just six days before the Truman/Daniel wedding on April 21, 1956, in Independence, Missouri. Later years and death In later life, Truman lived in her Park Avenue home. She died on January 29, 2008, in Chicago (to which she was relocating to be closer to her son Clifton). She was said to have been suffering from "a simple infection" and had been breathing with the assistance of a respirator. Her ashes and those of her husband were interred in Independence in her parents' burial plot on the grounds of the Truman Library. Bibliography Non-fiction Fiction The Capital Crimes series: As of 2021, six further novels in the series had been published under Truman's name as "with Donald Bain" or "with John Land." References External links trumanlibrary.org Margaret Truman at Find a Grave Appearances on C-SPAN Margaret Truman at IMDb

Mikhail_Theodoropoulos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Theodoropoulos

Mikhail Theodoropoulos (born 1933) is a Greek wrestler. He competed in the men's Greco-Roman bantamweight at the 1960 Summer Olympics. == References ==

Wrestling_at_the_1960_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_Greco-Roman_bantamweight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestling_at_the_1960_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_Greco-Roman_bantamweight

The men's Greco-Roman bantamweight competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome took place from 26 to 31 August at the Basilica of Maxentius. Nations were limited to one competitor. Bantamweight was the second-lightest category, including wrestlers weighing 52 to 57 kilograms (114.6 to 125.7 lb). Competition format This Greco-Roman wrestling competition continued to use the "bad points" elimination system introduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Greco-Roman and at the 1932 Summer Olympics for freestyle wrestling, though adjusted the point values slightly. Wins by fall continued to be worth 0 points and wins by decision continued to be worth 1 point. Losses by fall, however, were now worth 4 points (up from 3). Losses by decision were worth 3 points (consistent with most prior years, though in some losses by split decision had been worth only 2 points). Ties were now allowed, worth 2 points for each wrestler. The elimination threshold was also increased from 5 points to 6 points. The medal round concept, used in 1952 and 1956 requiring a round-robin amongst the medalists even if one or more finished a round with enough points for elimination, was used only if exactly three wrestlers remained after a round—if two competitors remained, they faced off head-to-head; if only one, he was the gold medalist. Results Round 1 Cañete withdrew after his bout. Schlechter was injured and could not continue. Bouts Points Round 2 Bouts Points Round 3 Bouts Points Round 4 The Official Report shows Vesterby (correctly) at 5 points after round 3, following 2 wins by decision and a loss by decision. After round 4, however, Vesterby is shown at 4 points even though his win by fall should have kept him at 5. There is no explanation for a wrestler receiving a reduction in bad points. Bouts Points Round 5 Vesterby's inexplicably reduced point total put him in a tie with Petrov for the bronze medal at 6 points. This tie was broken on head-to-head results; Petrov had defeated Vesterby in round 3. Vesterby would have finished in 4th place even were it not for the point reduction. Švec and Yılmaz were the ones ultimately affected by it, as they would have finished tied with Vesterby for 4th rather than tied only with each other for 5th. Bouts Points Round 6 Bouts Points References General The Games of the XVII Olympiad, Rome 1960: The Official Report of the Organizing Committee. Vol. 2. 1960. Retrieved 21 August 2024.

Greco-Roman_wrestling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_wrestling

Greco-Roman (American English), Graeco-Roman (British English), or classic wrestling (Continental English) is a style of wrestling that is practiced worldwide. Greco-Roman wrestling was included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and has been in every edition of the summer Olympics held since 1904. This style of wrestling forbids holds below the waist, which is the main feature that differentiates it from freestyle wrestling (the other form of wrestling contested at the Olympics). This restriction results in an emphasis on throws, because a wrestler cannot use trips to bring an opponent to the ground or hook/grab the opponent's leg to avoid being thrown. Greco-Roman wrestling is one of several forms of amateur competitive wrestling practiced internationally. The other wrestling disciplines sanctioned by United World Wrestling are: men's freestyle wrestling, women's freestyle wrestling, grappling (submission wrestling), pankration, Alysh (belt wrestling), Pahlavani wrestling, and beach wrestling. History The name "Greco-Roman" applied to this style of wrestling as a way of purporting it to be similar to the wrestling formerly found in the ancient civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea especially at the ancient Greek Olympics. At that time, the athletes initially wore skintight shorts but later wrestled each other naked. It is speculated that many styles of European folk wrestling may have spurred the origins of Greco-Roman wrestling. According to United World Wrestling, a Napoleonic soldier named Jean Exbrayat first developed the style. Exbrayat performed in fairs and called his style of wrestling "flat hand wrestling" to distinguish it from other forms of hand-to-hand combat that allowed striking. In 1848, Exbrayat established the rule that no holds below the waist were to be allowed; neither were painful holds or torsions that would hurt the opponent. "Flat hand wrestling" or "French wrestling" (as the style became known) developed all throughout Europe and became a popular sport. The Italian wrestler Basilio Bartoletti first coined the term "Greco-Roman" for the sport to underline the interest in "ancient values." Many others in the 18th and 20th centuries sought to add value to their contemporary athletic practices by finding some connections with ancient counterparts. The 18th century work Gymnastics for Youth by Johann Friedrich Guts Muths described a form of schoolboy wrestling called "orthopale" (used by Plato to describe the standing part of wrestling) that did not mention any lower-body holds. Real ancient wrestling was quite different; see Greek wrestling. The British never really enjoyed Greco-Roman wrestling in comparison to its less restrictive counterpart, freestyle wrestling, and neither did the Americans, despite the efforts of William Muldoon (a successful New York barroom freestyle wrestler who served in the Franco-Prussian War and learned the style in France) to promote it in the United States after the Civil War. However, on the continent of Europe, the style was highly promoted. Almost all the continental European capital cities hosted international Greco-Roman tournaments in the 19th century, with much prize money given to the place winners. For example, the Czar of Russia paid 500 francs for wrestlers to train and compete in his tournament, with 5,000 francs awarded as a prize to the tournament winner. Greco-Roman wrestling soon became prestigious in continental Europe. It was the first style registered at the modern Olympic Games, beginning in Athens in 1896 with one heavyweight bout, and grew in popularity during the 20th century. It has always been featured in the Olympic Games, except during the Paris Olympic Games in 1900 and the St. Louis Olympic Games of 1904, when freestyle first emerged as an Olympic sport. Perhaps the most well-known of Greco-Roman wrestlers in the 19th century was Georg Hackenschmidt born in Dorpat, Russian Empire, and nicknamed "The Russian Lion". Hackenschmidt in 1898 at the age of 21 and with 15 months of training defeated the experienced Paul Pons in a match in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 1900, he won professional tournaments in Moscow and St. Petersburg and a series of international tournaments after that. After defeating Tom Jenkins (from the United States) in both freestyle and Greco-Roman matches in England, Georg Hackenschmidt wrestled exclusively freestyle in order to compete better against English, Australian, and American opponents. Winning more than 2,000 victories in Greco-Roman and freestyle, Hackenschmidt served as the physical education adviser to the House of Lords after his retirement. Professional matches in Greco-Roman wrestling were known for their great brutality. Body slams, choke-holds, and head-butting was allowed, and even caustic substances were used to weaken the opponent. By the end of the 19th century, gouging with the nails, punching, and violently slamming the arms together around the opponent's stomach were forbidden. Greco-Roman matches were also famous for their length. Professionally, it was not uncommon for there to be matches lasting two or three hours. William Muldoon's bout with Clarence Whistler at the Terrace Garden Theater in New York lasted eight hours before ending in a draw. Even in the 1912 Olympics, a match between Martin Klein of Russia (Estonia) and Alfred Asikainen of Finland lasted for eleven hours and forty minutes before Martin Klein won. He received the silver medal because he was too tired to compete in final match next day. That record was later published at Guinness World Records. The International Amateur Wrestling Federation (IAWF) took over the regulation of Greco-Roman wrestling in 1921. Since then matches have been dramatically cut short, and today all movements that put the life or limb of the wrestler in jeopardy are forbidden. Professional wrestler Lou Thesz, who initially trained extensively in Greco-Roman, popularised the Greco-Roman backdrop during early televised professional matches. In Olympic competition, countries of the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Turkey, South Korea, Romania, Japan, Sweden, and Finland have had great success. Carl Westergren of Sweden won three Greco-Roman gold medals in 1920, 1924, and 1932, and was the first Greco-Roman wrestler to do so. Alexander Karelin did the same in 1988, 1992, and 1996. Ivar Johansson of Sweden won gold medals in Greco-Roman in 1932 and 1936 and also a gold medal in freestyle in 1932. The United States Olympic delegation (exclusively wrestling freestyle before) first entered Greco-Roman wrestling in 1952 and has taken three gold medals, won by Steve Fraser and Jeffrey Blatnick in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, and by Rulon Gardner at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Weight classes Currently, international Greco-Roman wrestling is divided into five main age categories: U15, U17 (Cadets), U20 (Juniors), Seniors U23, or Seniors. For men, there is also a special category for some Greco-Roman competitions, "Veterans", for men ages 35 and older, presumably featuring the same weight classes as seniors. Also, all of the men's age categories and weight classes can be applied to freestyle wrestling. Wrestlers after weigh-in may only wrestle in their own weight class. Wrestlers in the senior age category may wrestle up a weight class except for the heavyweight division (which starts at a weight more than 96 kg for the men). Different nations may have different weight classes and different age categories for their levels of Greco-Roman competition. Structure of tournament A typical international wrestling tournament takes place by direct elimination with an ideal number of wrestlers (4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.) in each weight class and age category competing for placement. The competition in each weight class takes place in one day. The day before the wrestling in a scheduled weight class and age category takes place, all the applicable wrestlers are examined by a physician and weighed-in. Each wrestler after being weighed on the scale then draws a token randomly that gives a certain number. If an ideal number is not reached to begin elimination rounds, a qualification round will take place to eliminate the excess number of wrestlers. For example, 22 wrestlers may weigh-in over the ideal number of 16 wrestlers. The six wrestlers who drew the highest numbers after 16 and the six wrestlers who drew the six numbers immediately before 17 would then wrestle in six matches in the qualification round. The winners of those matches would then go on to the elimination round. In the "elimination round", the ideal number of wrestlers then pair off and compete in matches until two victors emerge who will compete in the finals for first and second place. All of the wrestlers who lost to the two finals then have the chance to wrestle in a "repechage round". The repechage round begins with the wrestlers who lost to the two finalists at the lowest level of competition in the elimination round. The matches are paired off by the wrestlers who lost to one finalist and the wrestlers who lost to the other. The two wrestlers who win after every level of competition are the victors of the repechage round. In the "finals", the two victors of the elimination round compete for first and second place. In all rounds of the tournament, the wrestlers compete in matches paired off in the order of the numbers they drew after the weigh-in. After the finals match, the awards ceremony will take place. The first place and second place wrestlers will receive a gold and silver medal, respectively. (At the FILA World Championships, the first place wrestler will receive the World Championship Belt.) The two repechage round winners will each be awarded third place with a bronze medal. The two wrestlers who lost in the finals for the third place are awarded fifth place. From seventh place down, the wrestlers are ranked according to the classification points earned for their victories or losses. If there is a tie among wrestlers for classification points, the ranking is determined in this order from the highest to the lowest: Most victories earned by fall Most matches won by technical superiority Most periods won by technical superiority Most technical points scored in the tournament Least technical points scored in the tournament Wrestlers who remained tied after that will be awarded placements ex aequo. Wrestlers classified from the fifth to the 10th place will receive a special diploma. The wrestling tournaments in the Olympic Games and the Senior and Junior World Championships are designed to take place over three days on three mats. Layout of the mat The match takes place on a thick rubber circular mat that is shock-absorbing to ensure safety. For the Olympic Games, all World Championships, and World Cups, the mat has to be new. The main wrestling area has a nine-meter diameter and is surrounded by a 1.5 meter border of the same thickness known as the "protection area". Inside the nine meter in diameter circle is a red band of one meter in width that is on the outer edge of the circle and is known as the "red zone". The red zone is used to help indicate passivity on the part of a wrestler; thus, it is also known as the "passivity zone". Inside the red zone is the "central wrestling area" which is seven meters in diameter. In the middle of the central wrestling area is the "central circle", which is one meter in diameter. The central circle is surrounded by a band 10 centimeters wide and is divided in half by a red line eight centimeters in width. The diagonally opposite corners of the mat are marked with the wrestlers' colors, red and blue. For competition in the Olympic Games, the World Championships, and the Continental Championships, the mat is installed on a platform no greater than 1.1 meters in height. If the mat lies on a podium and the protection margin (covering and free space around the mat) does not reach two meters, then the sides of the podium are covered with 45° (degree) inclined panels. In all cases, the color of the protection area is different from the color of the mat. Equipment A "singlet" is a one-piece wrestling garment made of spandex that should provide a tight and comfortable fit for the wrestler. It is made from nylon or lycra and prevents an opponent from using anything on the wrestler as leverage. One wrestler usually competes in a red singlet and the other in a blue singlet. A special pair of "shoes" is worn by the wrestler to increase his mobility and flexibility. Wrestling shoes are light and flexible in order to provide maximum comfort and movement. Usually made with rubber soles, they help give the wrestler's feet a better grip on the mat. A "handkerchief", also called a "bloodrag", is carried in the singlet. In the event of bleeding, the wrestler will remove the cloth from his singlet and attempt to stop the bleeding or clean up any bodily fluids that may have gotten onto the mat. "Headgear", equipment worn around the ears to protect the wrestler, is optional in Greco-Roman. Headgear is omitted at the participant's own risk, as there is the potential to develop cauliflower ear. The match A match is a competition between two individual wrestlers of the same weight class. In Greco-Roman wrestling, a jury (or team) of three officials (referees) is used. The referee controls the action in the center, blowing the whistle to start and stop the action, and supervises the scoring of holds and infractions. The judge sits at the side of the mat, keeps score, and occasionally gives his approval when needed by the referee for various decisions. The mat chairman sits at the scoring table, keeps time, is responsible for declaring technical superiority, and supervises the work of the referee and judge. To call a fall, two of the three officials must agree (usually, the referee and either the judge or the mat chairman). Modern format In modern Greco-Roman wrestling, matches are contested over two three-minute halves with the winner being decided by fall, technical superiority or cumulative points across both periods (decision). The modern format emphasizes wrestling on the feet instead of mat wrestling (par terre); in contrast to the older format, par terre now only occurs as a result of a takedown/throw or when a wrestler commits an infraction (eg: passivity). Before each match, each wrestler's name is called, and the wrestler takes his place at the corner of the mat assigned to his color. The referee then calls them to his side at the center of the mat, shakes hands with them, inspects their apparel, and checks for any perspiration, oily or greasy substances, and any other infractions. The two wrestlers then greet each other, shake hands, and the referee blows his whistle to start the period. Upon conclusion of the match, the referee stands at the center of the mat facing the officials' table. Both wrestlers then shake hands, and stand on either side of the referee to await the decision. The referee then proclaims the winner by raising the winner's hand. Each wrestler then shakes hands with the referee and their opponent's coach. Old format Prior to recent rule changes, a wrestler wins the match when he has won the majority of periods. For example, if one competitor were to win the first period 1–0 and the second period 1–0, the match would be over. However, if the other competitor were to win the second period, then a third and deciding period would result. Only a fall, injury default, or disqualification terminates the match; all other modes of victory result only in period termination. One side effect of this format is that it is possible for the losing wrestler to outscore the winner. For example, periods may be scored 3–2, 0–4, 1–0, leading to a total score of 4–6 but a win for the wrestler scoring fewer points. This format was changed Each Greco-Roman period is broken up into a phase for wrestling from the neutral position and a maximum of two par terre (ground wrestling) phases. During the wrestling phase from the neutral position, both wrestlers compete for takedowns and points for 60 seconds as usual. At the end of the first minute, in general, the wrestler who has scored the most points will receive the advantage in an Olympic lift from an open par terre position on the other wrestler. This position is known as "par terre". If neither wrestler at this point has any points, the referee will toss a colored disk, with a red-colored side and a blue-colored side. The wrestler who won the colored disk toss will receive the advantage in the Olympic lift. The wrestler who lost the colored disk toss then places his hands and knees in the center circle, with the hands and knees at least 20 centimeters apart and the distance between the hands a maximum of 30 centimeters. The arms of that wrestler would be stretched out, the feet would not be crossed, and the thighs would be stretched out forming a 90-degree angle with the mat. The wrestler who won the colored disk toss would then be allowed to step beside the wrestler on the bottom, not touching him with his legs. If the wrestler who won the colored disk toss wished, he could place one knee on the mat. The top wrestler would then wrap his hands and arms around the bottom wrestler's waist and execute the Olympic lift (called an upside-down belt hold) at the beginning of the first 30 seconds. The bottom wrestler could then attempt to defend himself. At the end of first thirty seconds, the clinch position is reversed with the other wrestler receiving the Olympic lift, and the period continuing for the remaining 30 seconds. The period is decided by who accumulated the most points during both standing and ground phases. During each ground phase, if the top wrestler cannot score, the other wrestler is awarded one point. In the case of no scoring moves being executed during either ground phase the score will be 1–1, and in this case generally the wrestler to score last will be awarded the period. Scoring In Greco-Roman wrestling, as well as in freestyle wrestling, points are awarded mostly on the basis of explosive action and risk. For example, when one wrestler performs a grand amplitude throw that brings his opponent into the danger position, he is awarded the greatest number of points that can be scored in one instance. Also, a wrestler who takes the risk to briefly roll on the mat (with his shoulders in contact with the mat) could give a certain number of points to his opponent. Scoring can be accomplished in the following ways: Takedown (2 to 5 points): A wrestler is awarded points for a takedown when the wrestler gains control over his opponent on the mat from a neutral position (when the wrestler is on his feet). At least three points of contact have to be controlled on the mat (e.g. two arms and one knee; two knees and one arm or the head; or two arms and the head). Five points are awarded for a takedown brought about by a throw of grand amplitude (a throw in which a wrestler brings his opponent off of the mat and controls him so that his feet go directly above his head) either from the standing or par terre position into a direct and immediate danger position. Four points are generally awarded for a takedown brought about by a grand amplitude throw that does not bring his opponent in a direct and immediate danger position or for a takedown in which a wrestler's opponent is taken from his feet or his stomach to his back or side (a throw of short amplitude) so that he is in the danger position. Two points are awarded for a takedown brought about by a wrestler taking his opponent from his feet to his stomach or side such that his back or shoulders are not exposed to the mat. Reversal (1 point): A wrestler is awarded one point for a reversal when the wrestler gains control over his opponent from a defensive position (when the wrestler is being controlled by his opponent). Exposure also called the "Danger Position" (2 points): A wrestler is awarded points for exposure when the wrestler exposes his opponent's back to the mat for several seconds. Points for exposure are also awarded if a wrestler's back is to the mat but the wrestler is not pinned. Criteria for exposure or the danger position is met when 1) a wrestler's opponent is in a bridge position to avoid being pinned, 2) a wrestler's opponent is on one or both elbows with his back to the mat and avoids getting pinned, 3) a wrestler holds one of his opponent's shoulders to the mat and the other shoulder at an acute angle (less than 90 degrees), 4) a wrestler's opponent is in an "instantaneous fall" position (where both of his shoulders are on the mat for less than one second), or 5) the wrestler's opponent rolls on his shoulders. A wrestler in the danger position allows his opponent to score two points. An additional "hold-down point" may be earned by maintaining the exposure continuously for five seconds. Penalty (1 or 2 points): Under the 2004–2005 changes to the international styles, a wrestler whose opponent takes an injury time-out receives one point unless the injured wrestler is bleeding. Other infractions (e.g. fleeing a hold or the mat, striking the opponent, acting with brutality or intent to injure, and using illegal holds) are penalized by an award of either one or two points, a "caution", and a choice of position to the opponent. Out of bounds (1 point): Whenever a wrestler places his foot in the protection area, the match is stopped, and one point is awarded to his opponent. Classification points are also awarded in an international wrestling tournament, which give most points to the winner and in some cases, one point to the loser depending on the outcome of the match and how the victory was attained. For example, a victory by fall would give the winner five classification points and the loser no points, while a match won by technical superiority with the loser scoring technical points would award three points to the winner and one point to loser. The full determinations for scoring are found in the UWW International Wrestling Rules Victory conditions A match can be won in the following ways: Win by fall: The objective of the wrestling match is to attain victory by what is known as the fall. A fall, also known as a pin, occurs when one wrestler holds both of his opponents' shoulders on the mat simultaneously. In Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, the two shoulders of the defensive wrestler must be held long enough for the referee to "observe the total control of the fall" (usually ranging from one half-second to about one or two seconds). Then either the judge or the mat chairman concurs with the referee that a fall is made; if the referee does not indicate a fall, and the fall is valid, the judge and the mat chairman can concur together and announce the fall. A fall ends the match entirely regardless of when it occurs. In the United States, for the Kids freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling division (wrestlers ages 8 to 14) in competitions sponsored by USA Wrestling, it is specified that a fall must be held for two seconds. Win by technical superiority (also called "technical fall"): If a fall is not secured to end the match, a wrestler can win a period simply by points. If one wrestler gains an eight-point lead over his opponent at any break in continuous action, he is declared the winner of the match by technical superiority. Win by decision: If neither wrestler achieves either a fall or technical superiority, the wrestler who scored more points during the match is declared the winner. If the score is tied, the winner is determined by certain criteria. First, the number of cautions given to each wrestler for penalties; next, the value of points gained (that is, whether a wrestler gained points based on a two-, four-, or five-point move); and finally, the last scored technical point are taken into account to determine the winner. Generally, the wrestler who scored the last technical point will be awarded the period. Win by default: If one wrestler is unable to continue participating for any reason, or fails to show up on the mat after his name was called three times before the match begins, his opponent is declared the winner of the match by default, forfeit, or withdrawal as the case may be. Win by injury: If one wrestler is injured and unable to continue, the other wrestler is declared the winner. This is also referred to as a "medical forfeit" or "injury default". The term also encompasses situations where wrestlers become ill, take too many injury time-outs, or bleed uncontrollably. In the event a wrestler is injured by his opponent's illegal maneuver and cannot continue, the wrestler at fault is disqualified. Win by disqualification: If a wrestler is assessed three "cautions" for breaking the rules, he is disqualified. Under other circumstances, such as flagrant brutality or gross disrespect for officials, the match will be ended immediately and the offending wrestler ejected from the tournament. Team scoring in tournaments In an international wrestling tournament, teams enter one wrestler at each weight class and score points based on the individual performances. For example, if a wrestler at the 60 kg weight class finishes in first place, then his team will receive 10 points. If he were to finish in tenth place, then the team would only receive one. At the end of the tournament, each team's score is tallied, and the teams are then placed first, second, third, etc. Team competition A team competition or dual meet is a meeting between (typically two) teams in which individual wrestlers at a given weight class compete against each other. A team receives one point for each victory in a weight class regardless of the outcome. The team that scores the most points at the end of the matches wins the team competition. If there are two sets of competitions with one team winning the home competition and one winning the away competition, a third competition may take place to determine the winner for ranking purposes, or the ranking may take place by assessing in order: 1) the most victories by adding the points of the two matches; 2) the most points by fall, default, forfeit, or disqualification; 3) the most matches won by technical superiority; 4) the most periods won by technical superiority; 5) the most technical points won in all the competition; 6) the least technical points won in all the competition. This works similarly when more than two teams are involved in this predicament. Notable practitioners Olympic and world champions Mixed martial arts Professional wrestling See also Amateur wrestling Professional Greco-Roman wrestling in Germany Collegiate wrestling Folk wrestling Brazilian jiujitsu List of World and Olympic Champions in Greco-Roman wrestling References Further reading International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles. "Greco-Roman Wrestling". FILA. Archived from the original on 2011-07-11. Retrieved 2008-10-28. International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (2006-12-01). "International Wrestling Rules: Greco-Roman Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Women's Wrestling" (PDF). FILA. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2008-10-28. USA Wrestling (2009-02-01). "International Wrestling Rules: Greco-Roman Wrestling, Freestyle Wrestling, Women's Wrestling, modified for USA Wrestling" (PDF). USAW. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-02. Retrieved 2009-03-19. Poliakoff, Michael (1996). "Wrestling, Freestyle". In Christensen, Karen (ed.). Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present. Vol. 3. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc. pp. 1189–1193. ISBN 0-87436-819-7. Poliakoff, Michael (1996). "Wrestling, Greco-Roman". In Christensen, Karen (ed.). Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present. Vol. 3. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc. pp. 1194–1196. ISBN 0-87436-819-7. Armstrong, Walter (1890). "Wrestling, Greco-Roman". In Armstrong, Walter (ed.). Wrestling. Vol. 1. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. p. 52. Edmond Desbonnet, Les Rois de la Lutte, Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1910 External links United World Wrestling Hall of Fame – Greco-Roman inductees (archived) Greco-Roman wrestling news, articles, and videos (archived) TheMat.com (The Official Website of USA Wrestling) – News about Wrestling: Greco-Roman, Freestyle, International News Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Wrestling (archived) Amateur Athletic Wrestling (archived) Ternopolyanyn won in all-Ukrainian competitions

List_of_World_and_Olympic_Champions_in_Greco-Roman_wrestling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_and_Olympic_Champions_in_Greco-Roman_wrestling

Listed are wrestlers who were World or Olympic Champions in Greco-Roman wrestling. Greco-Roman wrestling competition was held at the first modern Olympics in 1896. The Greco-Roman World Championships was first held in 1904. The World Championships takes place during non Olympic years. At the World Championships team scoring is kept, while no official team statistics are kept for the Olympics. World Level Champions in Greco-Roman Wrestling by Year and Weight Olympic Champions and Olympic competition years in Greco-Roman wrestling are highlighted in gold. 1896 1898 1904 1905 1906–1907 1908–1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1920 1921–1928 1932–1936 1948–1968 1969–1996 1997–2001 2002–2013 2014–2017 2018–2019 2021 2021–2024 Individual Multiple-Time World Level Champions 12 World Level Championships Aleksandr Karelin, 1988–1999 10 World Level Championships Mijaín López, 2005–2024 7 World Level Championships Valery Rezantsev, 1970–1976 Hamid Sourian, 2005–2014 6 World Level Championships Nikolai Balboshin, 1973–1979 5 World Level Championships István Kozma, 1962–1968 Roman Rurua, 1966–1970 Viktor Igumenov, 1966–1971 Petar Kirov, 1968–1974 Aleksandar Tomov, 1971–1979 Gogi Koguashvili, 1993–1999 Hamza Yerlikaya, 1993–2005 Armen Nazaryan, 1996–2005 Roman Vlasov, 2011–2021 Rıza Kayaalp, 2011–2022 Artur Aleksanyan, 2014–2022 Team Championships The list below includes unofficial championships won during the Olympic Games, although no official team statistics are kept during Olympic years. 54 World Level Championships / / / / 1952–2021 7 World Level Championships 1908–1950 5 World Level Championships / 1904–1920 / 1911–1924 4 World Level Championships / 1896–1928 3 World Level Championships 2001–2021 2006–2022 2012–2024 2 World Level Championships 1984–2007 1 World Level Championship 1907 1971 1996 2003 2005 2023 See also List of World and Olympic Champions in men's freestyle wrestling List of World and Olympic Champions in women's freestyle wrestling United States results in Greco-Roman wrestling References Links FILA Wrestling Database

Eggstock_(Uri_Alps)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggstock_(Uri_Alps)

The Eggstock (3,554 m), is a minor prominence of the Uri Alps, forming the northern pillar of the Dammastock on the border between the cantons of Valais and Uri. The tripoint between the cantons of Bern, Valais and Uri (3,500 m) is located 600 m west of the summit. References External links Eggstock on Hikr

Eggstock_(Schwyzer_Alps)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggstock_(Schwyzer_Alps)

The Eggstock (2,455 m) is a mountain of the Schwyzer Alps, located on the border between the Swiss canton of Schwyz and canton of Glarus, north of Braunwald. It lies on the range east of the Bös Fulen, between the valley of Bösbächi and the cirque of Braunwald and is composed of three summits: the Hinterer Eggstock (2,455 m), the Mittlerer Eggstock (2,436 m) and the Vorderer Eggstock (2,449 m). References External links Hinterer Eggstock on Hikr

Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Hollywood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Hollywood

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a 2019 comedy action drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, and Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures, it is a co-production between the United States, United Kingdom, and China. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Set in 1969 Los Angeles, the film follows a fading actor and his stunt double as they navigate the rapidly changing film industry, with the threat of the Tate murders looming. Announced in July 2017, it is the first Tarantino film not to involve Bob and Harvey Weinstein, as Tarantino ended his partnership with the brothers following the sexual abuse allegations against the latter. After a bidding war, the film was distributed by Sony Pictures, which met Tarantino's demands including final cut privilege. Pitt, DiCaprio, Robbie, Zoë Bell, Kurt Russell, and others joined the cast between January and June 2018. Principal photography lasted from June through November around Los Angeles. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the final film to feature Luke Perry, who died on March 4, 2019, and it is dedicated to his memory. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 26, 2019, and in the United Kingdom on August 14. It grossed $374 million worldwide and received praise from critics for Tarantino's direction and screenplay, the performances (particularly from DiCaprio and Pitt), cinematography, soundtrack, sound design, costume design, and production values. The National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named Once Upon a Time in Hollywood one of the top-ten films of 2019. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was nominated for ten awards at the 92nd Academy Awards, winning two (Best Supporting Actor for Pitt and Best Production Design), and received numerous other accolades. A novelization, written by Tarantino in his debut as an author, was published in 2021. Plot In February 1969, Hollywood actor Rick Dalton, the former star of the 1950s Western show Bounty Law, copes with a fading career, his most recent roles being guest appearances as TV villains. Agent Marvin Schwarz advises him to make spaghetti Westerns in Italy, which Dalton considers beneath him. Dalton's best friend, stunt double, personal assistant, and driver is Cliff Booth – a World War II veteran, living in a trailer with his pit bull, Brandy. Booth struggles to find stunt work amid rumors he murdered his wife. Meanwhile, Dalton hopes to revive his career by befriending young actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, who live next door. While fixing the TV antenna atop Dalton's roof, Booth notices a hippie man, Charles Manson, arriving at the Polanski residence. Manson says he is looking for music producer Terry Melcher, who once lived there, but Tate's friend Jay Sebring turns him away. While Tate watches herself in The Wrecking Crew at the Fox Bruin Theater, Booth gives a hitchhiker named Pussycat a ride to Spahn Ranch, a former Western film set where Booth did stunt work. Booth checks on George Spahn, the ranch's nearly blind owner, making sure the hippies living there are not exploiting him. After discovering his car's tire has been punctured, Booth physically forces ranch hippie Clem to change it. The hippies' leader Tex is summoned to deal with the situation but arrives as Booth is driving away. While filming a guest star role as a TV villain on Lancer, Dalton forgets his lines. After berating himself, he returns to set and delivers a performance that impresses his young co-star, Trudi Frazer, and the director, Sam Wanamaker. Meanwhile, Schwarz books Dalton to star in Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti western. Booth accompanies Dalton for the six month shoot in Italy, where Dalton films three additional movies and marries Italian starlet Francesca Capucci. Before returning to the US, Dalton tells Booth that he can no longer afford his salary, which Booth amicably understands. Returning to Los Angeles on August 8, 1969, Dalton and Booth go out drinking to commemorate their time together. Returning to Dalton's house, Booth smokes an LSD-laced cigarette and takes Brandy for a walk while Dalton makes margaritas. Manson's followers Tex, Sadie, Katie, and FlowerChild arrive to murder the Tate house occupants. Hearing a car's loud muffler, an enraged Dalton orders the group off the private street. Recognizing him, the Family members decide to kill him instead, after Sadie reasons that Hollywood has "taught them to murder". Flowerchild deserts them, speeding off with their car. Breaking into Dalton's house, they confront Capucci and Booth. Booth recognizes them from Spahn Ranch and orders Brandy to attack. Together they kill Tex and injure Sadie, though Booth is stabbed in the thigh and passes out after killing Katie. Sadie stumbles outside, alarming Dalton, who was in his pool, oblivious to the melee inside. Dalton retrieves a flamethrower movie prop from his shed and incinerates Sadie. After Booth is taken away in an ambulance, Sebring and Tate invite Dalton in for a drink. Cast Quentin Tarantino portrays the director of Dalton's Red Apples cigarettes commercial and the voice of Bounty Law. Musician Toni Basil appears in the opening credits Pan Am scene dancing with Sharon Tate. Margot Robbie also briefly reprises her role as Laura Cameron, a stewardess from the TV series Pan Am. Although her face is not seen, she makes and serves Dalton a cocktail on his flight home from Italy. Additionally, the film features appearances from Clifton Collins Jr. as Ernesto "The Mexican" Vaquero, a character on Lancer, Omar Doom as Donnie, a biker on Spahn Ranch, Clu Gulager (in his last film role) as a book store owner, Perla Haney-Jardine as an LSD-selling hippie, Martin Kove and James Remar as a Sheriff and "Ugly Owl Hoot", two characters on Bounty Law, Brenda Vaccaro as Schwarz's wife Mary Alice, Tarantino's wife Daniella Pick as Daphna Ben-Cobo, Dalton's co-star in Nebraska Jim, Lew Temple, Vincent Laresca, JLouis Mills, and Maurice Compte as Land Pirates, Gabriela Flores as Maralu the Fiddle Player, and Corey Burton as Bounty Law Promo Announcer (voice). Ex–UFC star Keith Jardine performed stunts on the movie. An extended cut, released theatrically in October 2019, included an appearance by James Marsden as Burt Reynolds and a voice over by Walton Goggins. Danny Strong and Tim Roth shot scenes that were cut. Strong portrayed Dean Martin and Paul Barabuta (based on Rudolph Altobelli), the homeowner of 10050 Cielo Drive, while Roth portrayed Raymond,: page 123  Sebring's English butler. Sebring had a butler in real life named Amos Russell who was interviewed by the police while investigating the Tate murders. Despite being removed from the final theatrical cut of the film, Roth still received credit for acting in the film. Character details Fictional characters Rick Dalton Dalton is an actor who starred in the fictitious television Western series Bounty Law from 1959 to 1963,: page11  inspired by real-life series Wanted Dead or Alive, starring Steve McQueen. After Bounty Law, Dalton began to appear in supporting film roles, leading to a four-picture contract with Universal Pictures, ending in 1967. His film career never took off, and in 1967 he started to guest star on TV series as villains.: 10–18 Cliff Booth Booth, Dalton's stunt double, personal assistant and best friend, is an indestructible World War II hero, specializing in knives and close-quarters combat, and "one of the deadliest guys alive." He is a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, and has killed more Japanese soldiers than any other American soldier. Booth first met Dalton during the third season of Bounty Law in 1961 when he was brought in as his stunt double. A month into the job he saved Dalton's life after he caught on fire while filming an episode.: 48–50  Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt modeled Booth after Tom Laughlin's portrayal of Billy Jack. Booth had performed stunts on The Born Losers and was paid with the denim outfit worn by Laughlin as Billy Jack, which is what he wears in the film.: 25–26  Booth is inspired by Gary Kent, a stuntman for a film made at the Spahn Ranch while the Manson Family lived there, as well as stuntman, professional wrestler and two-time national judo champion Gene LeBell, who came to work on The Green Hornet after complaints by other stunt performers that Bruce Lee was "kicking the shit out of the stuntmen." Like Booth, LeBell was suspected of murder but never convicted. Pitt channeled Steve McQueen's stunt double Bud Ekins for his portrayal of Booth. Tarantino also revealed that Booth was inspired by a real stuntman who "was the closest equivalent to Stuntman Mike" (Kurt Russell) from Death Proof. He was "absolutely indestructible ... scared everybody ... [and] killed his wife on a boat and got away with it." Billie Booth is Cliff's wife, whose death in the film—and the ambiguity surrounding it—is a reference to Natalie Wood's, as is Billie's sister's name, Natalie. Unlike the ambiguity of the film, in the novelization Cliff did in fact murder Billie. He shot her with a speargun, almost tearing her in half, which he immediately regretted. There is a connection between Cliff and Robert Blake, to whom Tarantino dedicates the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood novel. Also in the novelization, Cliff had murdered three other people, including another stuntman.: 72–73, 268 Other fictional characters Trudi Frazer (Julia Butters), the precocious child actor who portrays Mirabella on Lancer, is inspired by Jodie Foster,: 1:20:00–1:22:00  while Mirabella is inspired by the character Teresa O'Brien from said series, portrayed by Elizabeth Baur. The character is older in the real-life Lancer. Frazer goes on to become an Academy Award–nominated actress. Her third nomination is for Tarantino's 1999 remake of The Lady in Red.: 353–54  Marvin Schwarz of the William Morris Agency: page1  is Dalton's agent, a role that Tarantino wrote specifically for Al Pacino. Francesca Capucci the Italian starlet who marries Dalton is based on 1960s Italian actresses and sex symbols, namely Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Virna Lisi and Monica Vitti. Some characters, such as Zoë Bell's stunt coordinator Janet Lloyd and Heba Thorisdottir's makeup artist Sonya, were portrayed by individuals who performed the same jobs for the film. Randy Lloyd is the stunt coordinator for The Green Hornet, a position that was held by Bennie Dobbins on the series in real life. Michael Madsen's Sheriff Hackett on Bounty Law is partially inspired by Peter Breck, who also served as Madsen's inspiration for Joe Gage in Tarantino's The Hateful Eight; specifically Breck's role in The Big Valley. Martin Kove's inspiration for his Sheriff on Bounty Law was Henry Fonda's portrayal of Wyatt Earp in John Ford's 1946 film My Darling Clementine. In casting Kove, Madsen, and James Remar for Bounty Law, Tarantino said he cast genre character actors of today to mirror character actors of the 1950s and 1960s who would appear on TV Westerns, such as Claude Akins and Vic Morrow. Historical characters Sharon Tate was an actress married to film director Roman Polanski, and is Dalton's neighbor in the film. Margot Robbie did not consult Polanski about playing Tate, but read his 1984 autobiography Roman by Polanski in preparation for the role. Tate filmed her last movie, The Thirteen Chairs, in Italy in 1969 during her pregnancy, at the same time as Dalton films movies there in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Roman Polanski, a film director whose credits include Rosemary's Baby and The Fearless Vampire Killers, where he first met Tate. Jay Sebring was a celebrity hairstylist, Tate's friend and ex-boyfriend, and friend of Bruce Lee (whom he helped get started in Hollywood) and Steve McQueen. Sebring and Tate attended a party at Cass Elliot's house which Charles Manson also attended. Abigail Folger, heir to the Folgers coffee fortune, and her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski were Tate's friends. James Stacy was an actor who played Johnny Madrid Lancer on Lancer. Stacy is last shown in the film leaving the Lancer set on a motorcycle; Stacy was in a motorcycle accident in 1973 that resulted in the death of his passenger and the loss of his arm and leg. His ex-wife, actress Connie Stevens, also portrayed in the film, organized a fundraiser for his recovery. Wayne Maunder, who portrayed Scott Lancer on Lancer, died during the filming of the movie while Luke Perry, who plays him in his last film role, died shortly afterwards. Luke's son Jack Perry appears with him in the film. Sam Wanamaker directed the real pilot of Lancer, as he does in the film. The Land Pirates were characters in the real pilot, who also appear in the pilot within the film. Wanamaker led the restoration of William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre after moving to London while blacklisted from Hollywood in the 1950s. In the film he likens Rick Dalton's character on Lancer to Shakespeare's Hamlet. In a deleted scene Wanamaker says, "You'd be amazed how many Westerns the plot is Shakespearean." He goes on to try to convince Dalton to play his character as Edmund from Shakespeare's King Lear. Business Bob Gilbert (Scoot McNairy) is a character on Lancer being portrayed by Bruce Dern.: page254  (McNairy is playing Dern, playing Business Bob) Bruce Lee was an actor and martial artist who starred as Kato on The Green Hornet. He taught Tate martial arts for The Wrecking Crew and also trained Sebring, Polanski and McQueen. Steve McQueen was an actor and friend of Tate, Sebring, and Lee. On the night of the Tate murders, Sebring invited McQueen over to Tate's house, but his date wanted to stay in. After the murders, the police found a Manson Family hit list including McQueen's name. Mama Cass Elliot and Michelle Phillips were members of the folk band the Mamas & the Papas. The sheet music for their song "Straight Shooter" was found on the piano at the murder scene in the Tate–Polanski residence. The song is also used in the film and teaser trailer. Polanski had an affair with Phillips while he was married to Tate. After the Tate murders, Polanski suspected Michelle's husband, John Phillips of the killings out of revenge for the affair. Connie (Monica Staggs) and Curt (Mark Warrack) are horse-riding customers at Spahn Ranch. As one way of earning their keep, the Manson Family gave horse riding tours to people visiting the ranch. Tarantino stated that he thinks his mother and step-father (Connie and Curt) took him horse riding at Spahn Ranch when he was six years old. Perla Haney-Jardine's hippie girl, who sells the acid-dipped cigarette to Cliff Booth, is based on "Today" Louise Malone, a hippie who appears in the 1968 documentary Revolution. As in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she sells the acid cigarettes at a traffic light. Tarantino said the dialogue in the scene is taken from the documentary. Allen Kincade (Spencer Garrett) is a celebrity television interviewer who is based on Wink Martindale. The character was named Wink Martindale in the screenplay but changed to Allen Kincade shortly before shooting due to clearance issues. The bookseller at Larry Edmunds Bookshop being portrayed by Clu Gulager who sells a copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles to Sharon Tate is Milton Luboviski, who was the real-life proprietor. Harvey "Humble Harve" Miller, portrayed by Rage Stewart, was a Los Angeles KHJ Boss Radio DJ who was convicted of killing his wife. The TV show Hullabaloo Rick Dalton appears on in the film was a real-life show, and one of the go-go dancers portrayed is Lada St. Edmund, who went on to become the highest paid stuntwoman in Hollywood history. The Manson Family George Spahn was an 80-year-old nearly blind man who rented his ranch out for westerns. The Manson Family lived on the ranch. Charlie is Charles Manson, a convicted felon and cult leader of "the Family" (later dubbed "the Manson Family" by the media), a hippie commune based in California. Members of the Family committed nine murders in the summer of 1969. Damon Herriman, who portrays Manson, also portrays him in David Fincher's Netflix series Mindhunter. Tarantino revealed that, since the Tate murders never happen in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood universe, neither do the LaBianca murders. The Manson Family gets kicked off Spahn Ranch and splits up, with Manson never becoming a familiar name or cult figure. "Pussycat", aka Debra Jo Hillhouse,: page81  is a composite character, with her nickname based on Kathryn Lutesinger's "Kitty Kat", yet modeled after and most notably based on Ruth Ann Moorehouse. Manson frequently sent Moorehouse into the city to lure men with money back to Spahn Ranch. Lutesinger met Manson through her boyfriend, Bobby Beausoleil. There was a Manson Family member named Pussycat, who is mentioned by Ed Sanders in his book The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion; according to those interviewed, Pussycat underwent an exorcism with Manson present. The real identity of Pussycat is never revealed. She is also an homage to Myra (Laurie Heineman) from John G. Avildsen's Save the Tiger. "Squeaky" was Lynette Fromme's nickname, given to her by Spahn because of the sound she made when he touched her. She was Spahn's main caretaker, tending to his needs, sexual or otherwise. "Tex" was Charles Watson's nickname. Spahn gave it to him because of his Texas accent. Within the film's universe the police later theorize that Tex, Sadie, and Katie broke into Rick Dalton's house because they "were frying on acid and were out to perform a Satanic ritual," based on Cliff Booth telling them that Tex said he was "the Devil".: page111  "Sadie" was Susan Atkins' nickname. Manson gave everyone fake IDs, and the name on Atkins' was "Sadie Mae Glutz". Atkins was called "Sexy Sadie" after a track on the Beatles' self-titled album that some of the Family members may have believed was about her.: 241, 252, xv  Mikey Madison, who played Sadie, would later portray a similar character in the 2022 film Scream. Like Sadie, her character Amber Freeman is a knife-wielding psycho killer. Amber decides to murder based on films whereas Sadie does so based on TV. Sadie gets set on fire by Rick Dalton, while Amber is set ablaze by Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox). "Katie" was Patricia Krenwinkel's nickname because of the name on her fake ID. Madisen Beaty, who portrays Krenwinkel, previously portrayed her on the TV series Aquarius. "Flowerchild" is the movie's name for Linda Kasabian, the fourth Family member to go to Tate's house. In 1970, Kasabian was described as a "true flower child". "Snake" was Dianne Lake's nickname, given to her by Manson because she rolled around in grass pretending to be a snake. At 14 she became the youngest member of the Manson Family after being kicked off Wavy Gravy's Hog Farm. Her parents were associates of Manson and her mother had dropped acid with him before Lake joined them. "Blue" was Sandra Good's nickname. Manson told her, "Woman, you're earth. I'm naming you Blue. Fix the air and the water. It's your job." Kansas Bowling, the actress who plays her, appears in the film with her sister Parker Love Bowling, who plays Family member "Tadpole". Parker previously portrayed a Manson girl in a reenactment for the Canadian History Channel. "Gypsy" was Catherine Share's nickname, which she gave herself after meeting a man named Gypsy, with whom she shared a birthday and believed him to be her cosmic twin. "Happy Cappy" is based on Catherine Gillies, who was nicknamed "Capistrano" by Spahn because she grew up in San Juan Capistrano and was later shortened to "Cappy" by the Family. Josephine Valentina Clark, the actress who plays her, added the "Happy" while working on the character. "Lulu" was one of Leslie Van Houten's nicknames, and "Clem" one of Steve Grogan's. "Tophat", portrayed in the film by Ronnie Zappa, was an alias of Bobby Beausoleil. In his 2001 book Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman mentions that, "Beausoleil had a style; a top hat that set him apart from the usual hippie fare." Beausoleil wrote: "I spied a felt top hat in the window of a... shop... I couldn't afford (it)... but it felt like it had been made for me... I couldn't resist the temptation to buy it." Beausoleil claimed that as soon as he put on the hat, ideas floating in his head came together. The character of "Sundance" was named by Cassidy Vick Hice, the actress who portrays her. She wrote, "I was asked to name my character by Quentin himself." Straight Satan David, portrayed in the film by David Steen, is a member of the Straight Satans Motorcycle Club, associates of the Family. Manson attempted to recruit them as personal security but, with the exception of club treasurer Danny DeCarlo, was unsuccessful. DeCarlo lived on the ranch as part of the Family.: 77, 89, 102  Bill "Sweet William" Fritsch, portrayed by Tom Hartig was a member of the Hells Angels and Diggers and a Manson Family associate. Fritsch worked security for the Altamont Free Concert and acted in deleted scenes of Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising. Production Writing and development The screenplay for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was developed slowly over several years by Quentin Tarantino. While he knew he wanted it to be titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, evoking the idea of a fairy tale, he publicly referred to the project as Magnum opus. The life of the work for the first five years was as a novel, which Tarantino considered to be an exploratory approach to the story, not yet having decided if it would be a screenplay. Tarantino tried other writing approaches: the early scene between Rick Dalton and Marvin Schwarz was originally written as a one-act play. Tarantino discovered the centerpiece for the work about 10 years previously while filming Death Proof with Kurt Russell who had been working with the same stunt double, John Casino, for several years. Even though there was only a small bit for Casino to do, Tarantino was asked to use him, and agreed. The relationship fascinated Tarantino and inspired him to make a film about Hollywood. Tarantino stated, while Casino may have been a perfect double for Russell years earlier, when he met them, "this was maybe the last or second-to-last thing they'd be doing together". Tarantino first created stuntman Cliff Booth, giving him a massive backstory. Next, he created actor Rick Dalton for whom Booth would stunt double. Tarantino decided to have them be Sharon Tate's next-door neighbors in 1969. The first plot point he developed was the ending, moving backwards from there, this being the first time Tarantino had worked this way. He thought of doing an Elmore Leonard-type story, but realized he was confident enough in his characters to let them drive the film and let it be a day in the life of Booth, Dalton, and Tate. He would use sequences from Dalton's films for the action, inspired by Richard Rush's 1980 film The Stunt Man, which used the scenes from the WWI movie they were making within the film as the action. Further, to get his mind into Dalton, Tarantino wrote five episodes of the fictional television show Bounty Law, in which Dalton had starred, having become fascinated with the amount of story crammed into half-hour episodes of 1950s western shows. Tarantino kept the only copy of the third act of the script in a safe to prevent it from being prematurely released. DiCaprio, Robbie, and Pitt were the only other people who read the entire script. In an interview with Adam Sandler, Pitt revealed that the only other copy of the script was burned by Tarantino. Pre-production and casting On July 11, 2017, it was reported that Tarantino's next film would be about the Manson murders. Harvey and Bob Weinstein would be involved, but it was not known whether The Weinstein Company would distribute the film, as Tarantino sought to cast before sending a package to studios. Tarantino approached Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence for roles and Margot Robbie was being considered for the role of Sharon Tate. After the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, Tarantino cut ties with Weinstein and sought a new distributor, after having worked with Weinstein for his entire career. At this point, Leonardo DiCaprio was revealed to be among a short list of actors Tarantino was considering. A short time later, reports circulated that studios were bidding for the film, and that David Heyman had joined as a producer, along with Tarantino and Shannon McIntosh. On November 11, 2017, Sony Pictures announced they would distribute the film, beating Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Annapurna Pictures and Lionsgate. Tarantino's demands included a $95 million budget, final cut privilege, "extraordinary creative controls", 25% of first-dollar gross, and the stipulation that the rights revert to him after 10 to 20 years. In January 2018, DiCaprio signed on, taking a pay cut to collaborate with Tarantino again. Al Pacino was being considered for a role. On February 28, 2018, the film was titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Pitt cast as Cliff Booth. DiCaprio and Pitt were each paid $10 million. In March 2018, Robbie, who had expressed interest in working with Tarantino, signed to co-star as Sharon Tate, while Zoë Bell confirmed she would appear. In May 2018, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, and Michael Madsen joined the cast. Timothy Olyphant was also cast. In June 2018, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Clifton Collins Jr., Keith Jefferson, Nicholas Hammond, Pacino, and Scoot McNairy joined the cast. Spencer Garrett, James Remar, and Mike Moh were announced in July. In August 2018, Damon Herriman as Charles Manson, and Lena Dunham, Austin Butler, Danny Strong, Rafał Zawierucha, Rumer Willis, Dreama Walker, and Margaret Qualley were cast. When Butler auditioned for the film, he was not aware of which character he was being considered for. Tarantino told him it was for a villain or a hero on Lancer, when in fact it was for Tex Watson. To prepare for her audition, Maya Hawke practiced with her father, Ethan Hawke. She stated, "He (Tarantino) actually organized a really amazing callback process that was unlike anything I've ever been through... except maybe auditioning for drama school." Willis auditioned for two roles, neither of which she got, but was later offered the part of Joanna Pettet. Sydney Sweeney said everyone she auditioned with did so for the same character, then were told they could do extra credit. Some did artwork, and she wrote a letter in character. Julia Butters says her sitcom American Housewife was on while Tarantino was writing her character, Trudi Frazer. He looked up and said, "Maybe she can try this." Burt Reynolds was cast as George Spahn in May 2018, but died in September before he was able to film his scenes and was replaced by Bruce Dern. Reynolds did a rehearsal and script reading, his last performance. After reading the script and learning that Pitt would be portraying Booth, Reynolds told Tarantino, "You gotta have somebody say, 'You're pretty for a stunt guy.'" The line appears in the film, spoken to Booth by Bruce Lee. The last thing Reynolds did before he died was run lines with his assistant for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino initially approached Jennifer Lawrence to portray Manson Family member Squeaky Fromme, saying "She was interested but something just didn't work out." Tarantino had also spoken to Tom Cruise about playing Cliff Booth, who was being considered for the role. Charlie Day was offered to audition for the part of Manson. Day did not show up to audition because he did not want to see himself in that role. Macaulay Culkin auditioned for an undisclosed role. It was his first audition in eight years. It was also initially reported that frequent Tarantino collaborator Samuel L. Jackson was in talks for a role as the villain of a Bounty Law episode. Filming and design When it came to the look of 1969 Hollywood in the film a large part of it was told through the memory of a child. Tarantino stated:the jumping off point was going to be my memory – as a six-year old sitting in the passenger seat of my stepfather's Karmann Ghia. And even that shot, that kind of looks up at Cliff as he drives by the Earl Scheib, and all those signs, that's pretty much my perspective, being a little kid... Principal photography began on June 18, 2018, in Los Angeles, California, and wrapped on November 1, 2018. Tarantino's directive was to turn Los Angeles of 2018 into Los Angeles of 1969 without computer-generated imagery. For this, he tapped into previous collaborators for production: editor Fred Raskin, cinematographer Robert Richardson, sound editor Wylie Stateman and makeup artist Heba Thorisdottir. He also brought first-time collaborators, production designer Barbara Ling, based on her work recreating historical settings in The Doors, and costume designer Arianne Phillips. Despite Tarantino's intent, the production wound up using more than 75 digital visual effects shots by Luma Pictures and Lola VFX, mainly to cover up modern billboards and erasing non-1960s buildings from driving shots. To film at the Pussycat Theater, production designer Barbara Ling and her team covered the building's LED signage and reattached the theater's iconic logo, rebuilding the letters and neon. Ling said the lettering on every marquee in the film is historically accurate. To restore Larry Edmunds Bookshop, she reproduced the original storefront sign and tracked down period-appropriate merchandise, even recreating book covers. Her team restored the Bruin and Fox Village theaters, including their marquees, and the storefronts around them. Stan's Donuts, across the street from the Bruin, got a complete makeover. The Playboy Mansion scene was shot at the actual mansion. Tarantino was adamant about filming there, but it took a while to obtain permission since the mansion had been sold to a private owner following Hugh Hefner's death. Tarantino and Ling met with the new owner to discuss the parts they wanted to use, but he was reluctant since the property was in the middle of a renovation. After long negotiations he agreed, and Ling was able to dress the vacant mansion, front courtyard, and backyard for the party scene, evoking as much of the 1960s appearance of the mansion as possible. The dance sequence for the scene was choreographed by Toni Basil who knew Sharon Tate and once dated Jay Sebring. She also choreographed Dalton's Hullabaloo scene. Though the film is set in 1969, the mansion was actually not acquired by Playboy until 1971, resulting in an obvious anachronism. Several important scenes were shot at the Musso & Frank Grill, which was a "must have" location for Tarantino according to Rick Schuler, supervising location manager. "I feel so lucky that there's a place like the Musso & Frank Grill, one that exists now exactly how it has always been," Tarantino said. "It was fantastic being able to shoot at an iconic landmark that is so authentic and connected to Hollywood." The scenes involving the Tate–Polanski house were not filmed at Cielo Drive, the winding street where the 3,200 square-foot house once stood. The house was razed in 1994 and replaced with a mansion nearly six times the size. Scenes involving the house were filmed at three different locations around Los Angeles: one for the interior, one for the exterior, and a Universal City location for the scenes depicting the iconic cul-de-sac driveway. Movie poster artist Steven Chorney created the poster for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as a reference to The Mod Squad. He and Renato Casaro created the posters for the movies within the film, Nebraska Jim, Operation Dyn-O-Mite, Uccidimi Subito Ringo Disse il Gringo, Hell-Fire Texas, and Comanche Uprising, which was reprinted for Dalton's home parking spot. Mad magazine caricaturist Tom Richmond created the covers of Mad and TV Guide featuring Dalton's Jake Cahill modeled after the art of Jack Davis. Tarantino told Richardson, "I want [it] to feel retro but I want [it] to be contemporary." Richardson shot in Kodak 35mm with Panavision cameras and lenses, in order to weave time periods. For Bounty Law they shot in black and white, and brief sequences in Super 8 and 16mm Ektachrome. In the film, Lancer was shot on a retrofitted Western Street backlot at Universal Studios, designed by Ling. Richardson crossed Lancer with Alias Smith and Jones for the retro-future look Tarantino wanted. The way they filmed Lancer was not possible in 1969, but Tarantino wanted his personal touch on it. Richardson said that filming the movie touched him personally: "The film speaks to all of us... We are all fragile beings with a limited time to achieve whatever it is we desire... that at any moment that place will shift... so take stock in life and have the courage to believe in yourself." In order to build the Lancer set Ling watched "Enormous amounts of episodes" of the series. She built a western town filled with adobe buildings. For Bounty Law, she went for a dusty, dirty, early Deadwood look, to separate it from the "Moneyed Lancer world". Spahn Ranch was recreated in detail over about a three-month period. A wildfire completely destroyed the ranch in 1970 so the scenes for the movie were filmed at nearby Corriganville Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, which was also a movie ranch at one time. Tarantino made sure to use a lot of dogs in the scenes. He said in real life many dogs lived on the ranch and made it feel alive. He even made sure there were dogs moving around in every shot. He was inspired to use the dogs in this manner from the way Francis Ford Coppola used helicopters in Apocalypse Now during the Robert Duvall scenes. To improve the use of practical effects, Leonardo DiCaprio was allowed to light stunt coordinators on fire while shooting scenes with a flamethrower. The exterior of the Van Nuys Drive-in theater scene was filmed at the Paramount Drive-in theater since the Van Nuys Drive-in theater no longer exists. As the camera rises up over the theater, the shot transitions to a miniature set with toy cars.: 36:00–39:00  For some of the driving scenes, the Hollywood Freeway and Marina Freeway in Los Angeles were shut down for hours in order to fill them with vintage cars. The scene depicting Bruce Lee training Jay Sebring was filmed at Sebring's actual house. The scene in which Rick Dalton flubs his lines in Lancer was not in the screenplay but rather an idea DiCaprio had on set while filming. Afterwards Tarantino came up with the idea for Dalton's "freakout" scene in his trailer, taking inspiration from Robert De Niro's performance in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Tarantino stated, "It's got to be like Travis Bickle when he's in his apartment by himself." DiCaprio improvised the entire scene. Music The soundtrack from the film is a compilation album of classic rock, which includes multiple tracks from Paul Revere & the Raiders, as well as 1960s radio ads and DJ patter. The film also contains numerous songs and scores not included on the soundtrack, including from artists the Mamas & the Papas and Elmer Bernstein. Release Once Upon a Time in Hollywood premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019, the 25th anniversary of Tarantino's premiere of Pulp Fiction at the festival. It was released theatrically in the United States on July 26, 2019, by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label. The film was originally scheduled for release on August 9, 2019, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Tate–LaBianca murders. A teaser trailer was released on March 20, 2019, featuring 1960s music by the Mamas and the Papas ("Straight Shooter") and by Los Bravos ("Bring a Little Lovin'"). The official trailer was released on May 21, 2019, featuring the songs "Good Thing" by Paul Revere & the Raiders, and "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" by Neil Diamond. The studio spent around $110 million marketing the film. An extended cut of the film featuring four additional scenes was released in theaters on October 25, 2019. Home media The film was released through digital retailers on November 22, 2019, and on Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, and DVD on December 10. The 4K version is available as a regular version and a collector's edition. In April 2020, Media Play News magazine announced Once Upon a Time in Hollywood earned Title of the Year and Best Theatrical Home release in the 10th annual Home Media Awards. Both the DVD and Blu-ray contain a deleted scene, in which Charles Manson confronts Paul Barabuta, portrayed by Danny Strong, the homeowner and caretaker of the Tate-Polanski residence. Barabuta is based on the home's owner, Rudolph Altobelli, and its caretaker, William Garretson. Reception Box office Once Upon a Time in Hollywood grossed $142.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $232.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $374.6 million. By some estimates, the film needed to gross around $250 million worldwide in order to break-even, with others estimating it would need to make $400 million in order to turn a profit. In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $30–40 million from 3,659 theaters in its opening weekend, with some projections having it as high as $50 million or as low as $25 million. The week of its release, Fandango reported the film was the highest pre-seller of any Tarantino film. The film made $16.9 million on its first day, including $5.8 million from Thursday night previews (the highest total of Tarantino's career). It went on to debut to $41.1 million, finishing second behind holdover The Lion King and marking Tarantino's largest opening. Comscore reported that 47% of audience members went to see the film because of who the director was (compared to the typical 7%) and 37% went because of the cast (compared to normally 18%). The film grossed $20 million in its second weekend, representing a "nice" drop of just 51% and finishing third, and then made $11.6 million and $7.6 million the subsequent weekends. In its fifth weekend the film made $5 million, bringing its running domestic total to $123.1 million, becoming the second-highest of Tarantino's career behind Django Unchained. In its ninth weekend, its global total earnings reached $329.4 million, surpassing Inglourious Basterds to become Tarantino's second-highest global grosser behind Django Unchained. Critical response On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 584 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Thrillingly unrestrained yet solidly crafted, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood tempers Tarantino's provocative impulses with the clarity of a mature filmmaker's vision." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 62 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average of 4 out of 5 stars and a 58% "definite recommend". The Hollywood Reporter said critics had "an overall positive view", with some calling it "Tarantino's love letter to '60s L.A.," praising its cast and setting, while others were "divided on its ending." ReelViews' James Berardinelli awarded the film 3.5 stars out of 4, saying it was "made by a movie-lover for movie-lovers. And even those who don't qualify may still enjoy the hell out of it." RogerEbert.com's Brian Tallerico gave it four out of four stars, calling it "layered and ambitious, the product of a confident filmmaker working with collaborators completely in tune with his vision". The Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper described it as "a brilliant and sometimes outrageously fantastic mash-up of real-life events and characters with pure fiction", giving it full marks. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it five out of five stars, praising Pitt and DiCaprio's performances and calling it "Tarantino's dazzling LA redemption song". Steve Pond of TheWrap said: "Big, brash, ridiculous, too long, and in the end invigorating, the film is a grand playground for its director to fetishize old pop culture and bring his gleeful perversity to the craft of moviemaking." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film 4.5 out of 5 stars, remarking that "All the actors, in roles large and small, bring their A games to the film. Two hours and 40 minutes can feel long for some. I wouldn't change a frame." Katie Rife of The A.V. Club gave it a B+, noting "The relationship between Rick and Cliff is at the emotional heart of Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood" and calling it Tarantino's "wistful midlife crisis movie". In Little White Lies, Christopher Hooton described it as "occasionally tedious" but "constantly awe-inspiring", noting it did not seem to be a "love letter to Hollywood" but an "obituary for a moment in culture that looks unlikely to ever be resurrected." Writing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman called it a "heady engrossing collage of a film—but not, in the end, a masterpiece." Richard Brody of The New Yorker called it an "obscenely regressive vision of the sixties" that "celebrates white-male stardom (and behind-the-scenes command) at the expense of everyone else." Caspar Salmon of The Guardian took issue with the violence in the film, writing, "Tarantino's filmography reveals a director in search of increasingly gruesome settings to validate his revenge fantasies and...blood-thirst." Accolades At the 92nd Academy Awards, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing; and won Best Supporting Actor and Best Production Design. The film's other nominations include ten British Academy Film Awards (winning one), twelve Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning four), and five Golden Globe Awards (winning three). The National Board of Review included the film as one of the top 10 films of the year and awarded Tarantino Best Director and Pitt Best Supporting Actor. The American Film Institute included it as one of the top 10 films of 2019. In December 2021, the film's screenplay was listed number twenty-two on the Writers Guild of America's "101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far)". Analysis Story, themes and character symbolism Dan Schindel of Hyperallergic wrote of the symbolism in the film's nostalgia. He wrote the detail is almost "microscopic", in its use of "hundreds of period ephemera" across various mediums, most of which is unrecognizable to most viewers. Schindel writes that these forgotten memories surround the character of Rick Dalton because he too is a piece of forgotten nostalgia. Schindel also writes about the dynamics between the characters. Dalton and Booth represent the duality of attitudes towards "their seeming impending obsolesce." Booth being relaxed and accepting it and Dalton being fragile and insecure about it. As Dalton's whole life is about how he is perceived, he is obsessed with how he wishes to be perceived. Sharon Tate, also an actor, is filled with joy when she is able to see herself entertain a theater audience. But, Schindel says, that scene also humanizes her, making her a person, rather than the "victim" she has become. He also expresses that Dalton and Booth represent Old Hollywood, while Tate represents New Hollywood and the future. Schindel states that Tarantino uses darkness, both for Booth and his questionable past as well as in the Manson Family. While Booth's possible crimes shade the nostalgia, the Manson clan shades the future. In the end, however, not only are Booth and Dalton able to save the future, but Dalton becomes the hero he always wanted to be. Travis Woods also wrote of what the three characters represent and how it is demonstrated in the film. He states that the three leads represent the past, present, and future. Dalton is the past, stuck in a fading world and afraid to let go. Booth is the present, always living in the moment, and Tate the promise of a future on the rise. They also represent three class levels of Hollywood with Booth literally living in the shadows of the movie industry. His home is a trailer in the shadows of the Van Nuys Drive-In Theater. Woods also construes how Booth being the stunt double of Dalton is illustrated throughout. Dalton struggles with an emotional arc and change, while Booth clashes with danger and physical obstacles. Woods points out the actor's job is to provide the audience with the emotional arc, while the stuntman's job is to step in for the physicality and danger, as told to us in the first scene. This is shown when Dalton faces his existential fears on the set of Lancer by taking on a new acting challenge on a Western set and overcoming his fears and inner struggles. Meanwhile, Booth comes in to handle the dangerous stuff on another Western set where he also triumphs. While they both have their victories, Tate has hers as well by not only simply living her life but also by watching herself in a movie with an audience. Woods writes the finale ties it all together; "How a stunt works, and fantasy is made real: the actor performs a scene all the way up to a threat of violence. There's a cut, and the stunt double enters the scene, stands in for the actor and cheats death." And so, Dalton fearlessly confronts the would-be killers outside of his home. After a cut, "Booth enters the scene... cheats death," and handles the physical danger. At the end, Dalton re-enters and gets the glory. A feat that could not have been achieved by either the actor or stuntman alone, but only together. Woods concludes, this also represents the past and present "uniting to allow for a better future". "The past leads to the present, and the present leads to the future, and all three are required for the narrative to continue." David G. Hughes wrote of the symbolized fantasy. He noted that Tate is a "symbol of effervescent life, unadulterated joy, and graceful innocence," while Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune saw the character as a Goddess. However Hughes was much more interested in what Booth represents. He wrote how Dalton's stress and psychological issues prevent him from being a symbol of fantasy for the audience. Booth is the film's hero and simultaneously works loyally for Dalton from a place of low social standing. Hughes states this could be "a Marxist point about invisible labor and the Substructure." However, Hughes feels this does not work to engage the audience. He draws on Sigmund Freud and his Psychopathic Characters on the Stage. He says what makes Booth interesting and particularly Brad Pitt's portrayal of him is sex appeal. Being handsome, strong, loyal, and courageous makes him desirable. Hughes states that Booth is Laura Mulvey's "...perfect, ...complete, more powerful ideal ego." Tarantino has Booth fight Bruce Lee to create the myth of Booth. Hughes also writes that Booth embodies the Buddha's teachings on Zen, but also that he is capable of "barbaric violence". These qualities make him the "fantasy of righteous male power". Hughes compares Booth to Charles Manson, saying both are violent outcasts who sit between the worlds of Western Renaissance and Eastern philosophy. However, he says they are the antithesis of each other. While Booth has a code, Manson only serves himself. Manson "is Hollywood's monster from the id [and Booth] is its ego ideal and savior." A Los Angeles Catholic bishop, Robert Barron, praised the character of Cliff Booth as embodying the four cardinal virtues. Naomi Fry of The New Yorker wrote how the film is about the disposability of people in Hollywood. She sees Dalton and Tate as needing to be seen as their livelihoods depend on it and "an actor onscreen as a conduit for [their] own fantasies and those of others." Dalton feels he is no longer able to do this, and is tortured by the feeling. Booth has also been discarded by Hollywood to the point of Dalton having to beg for him to be used. Fry says of Dalton's career that there is "a sense of the ruthlessness of Hollywood, whose denizens are devastated when the industry almost inevitably turns away its gaze." She also notes how Tarantino "pulls a neat trick by casting DiCaprio and Pitt," two of the biggest movie stars as a has-been and a nobody. Armond White and Kyle Smith of National Review, in separate reviews, interpreted and praised the film as being politically conservative, with Smith writing that "It mercilessly sends up leftist values. In its foundations, it's so breathtakingly right-wing it could have been made by Mel Gibson." The finale and the Manson Family Theologian David Bentley Hart wrote that Once Upon a Time "exhibit[s] a genuine ethical pathos" for its portrayal of "cosmic justice". Hart wrote how he was a child when the Tate murders occurred and that the Manson Family were "the first monsters who ever truly terrified me and tormented me with nightmares." He remembers how the children at his school would tell the stories of the Manson Family murders. Hart praised the revisionism when "Tarantino's version of the story unexpectedly veered away into some other, dreamlike, better world, where the monsters inadvertently passed through the wrong door and met the end they deserved." Hart states "the artistic masterstroke" comes in the end when Tate is heard "as a disembodied voice... speaking from that alternative reality, that terrestrial paradise that evil could not enter." Av Sinensky wrote about the ending of the film when Susan Atkins concludes that the Manson Family members should kill Dalton because he played a character who killed people on TV, he "taught them to kill." Sinensky notes that Tarantino is putting "the words of his critics into the mouth of a Manson murderer," regarding his use of fictional gratuitous violence. While David G. Hughes opined that Tarantino is using the scene to say that those who crusade against fictional violence are hypocrites and complicit in real violence. Hughes wrote that by switching the real-life violence by Manson Family members with movie violence instead directed at them, "Tarantino is making a firm distinction between cruel real-world violence and ethical, cathartic fantasy violence." Priscilla Page wrote how the Manson Family murders have become a myth and "framed our understanding of what was happening in America and the world," and in the film Spahn Ranch represents the intersection of Hollywood fantasy "and the dark underbelly of Los Angeles." Michael Phillips likened the Manson girls to "strung out Sirens," while Page stated how the Manson Family "are ghosts haunting Spahn Ranch... Demons to be exorcised." Page notes how the final act accomplishes this exorcism and also the symbolism of Booth and Tex Watson pointing guns at each other. Watson's is real, just as the Manson Family's violence was. Booth's is not but rather a finger, as his violence is fictional. Through the fictional violence the myth of the Manson Family is purged. She writes the exorcism and revenge of the film are not only through the violence but also because "the film denies Manson a meaningful presence," demythologizing him and "reduc[ing] him to a cameo, expos[ing] the Manson Family as inept, and mak[ing] Sharon Tate the story's beating heart." Steven Boone referred to Dalton going to Tate's house as "entering the gates of Cielo Drive's Hollywood heaven." Something his colleague Simon Abrams also alluded to when he commented, "Jay Sebring invites [Dalton] in for a drink like a hipper St. Peter." Dan Schindel also saw Dalton's walk up Tate's driveway as "an ascent to heaven", based on the "rising camera movement". Naomi Fry compared Dalton going through the gates as him entering the Garden of Eden. Writing in the academic journal Animation, Jason Barker draws from Aristotle's Poetics to analyze in detail the film's use of "cartoon violence", speculating that such violence "is more or less inversely related to the film's dramatic content". Barker concludes that: "Through self-indulgent, inane, insane and tyrannical cartoonism, Once Upon a Time. . . in Hollywood presents not so much a measure of contemporary violence, as a measure of indifference to violence: dramatic indifference and, perhaps, social indifference to a cartoon violence that is real in more ways than one." Booth's fantasy Multiple critics interpreted Cliff Booth as an unreliable narrator when it came to him remembering his fight with Bruce Lee. "In the span of seconds" the fight "goes from being viewed by dozens of people to absolutely no one." The crowd just disappears which some believe shows the flashback to be a "false memory". The interpretation is that Booth is only remembering what he wants to and "the purpose of that scene is to show us we can't trust Cliff." Steven Hyden of Uproxx interpreted the ending of the film as a vision of Cliff Booth brought on through his consumption of LSD. Hyden proposes that when Booth smokes the acid-cigarette and says, "And away we go," it marks the beginning of his vision. He then leaves to take his dog Brandy for a walk, walking by the car of killers down the street who Hyden believes Booth sees in the car and recognizes from Spahn Ranch. This allows Booth's imagination to run wild thanks to the acid. He imagines the killers in the car talking about his and Dalton's show, Bounty Law. He then imagines a scenario that lets him play out his violent fantasies and allows Dalton to be a hero, using a flamethrower from a film he would never actually still own but which occupies a place in Booth's memory. Hyden writes that the ending is Booth's hallucinatory fantasy that allows him to stay employed by Dalton, while also allowing Dalton to be accepted by the New Hollywood elite, Sharon Tate. Also that in this fantasy Tate and members of the Manson Family are fans of Dalton, just as Booth is. Steven Boone of The Hollywood Reporter also commented on the ending feeling like Booth's fantasy. About the ending, he wrote "It's as if stuntman Cliff, a serene Hollywood foot soldier...was the editor here." Kyle Anderson theorized the ending is not only Booth's fantasy but Dalton's as well. He states that Booth's memory of fighting Lee is "his twisted recollection of an event that probably didn't happen." Anderson notes that "Cliff is a complete psychopath" whose life has amounted to menial labor, while "Rick [is] a washed-up loser." The ending is not "just a dream of what might have happened," it is Booth's and Dalton's dream. Booth gets to fulfill his hero fantasy and instead of Dalton losing his house and career he gets to be idolized and accepted by the "cool kids". Billie Booth Anna Swanson wrote about the death of Billie and how it is used to frame the rest of the film. She writes how Tarantino not showing us what happens is a deliberate decision and also an homage to the death of Marvin (Phil LaMarr) in Pulp Fiction and the fact we do not know why Vincent Vega's (John Travolta) gun goes off and shoots Marvin. Within the film one can interpret Billie's death as Cliff's speargun accidentally going off in the same vein as Vincent's gun, or as a cold-blooded murder by Cliff and a cover up, or in a number of other scenarios. Swanson argues that which interpretation the individual viewer has will lead them to view the rest of the film through that lens and have a completely different experience than someone who views it alternatively. She notes we do not even know whose perspective the Billie Booth scene is from. It is a flashback within a flashback and so could be Cliff's memory but as it is told by Randy it could be his perspective based on what he heard. It could be what Cliff is imagining Randy is saying to Rick. It could even be an "omniscient perspective". If one views Cliff as innocent it makes him easier to like, and could be "suggesting an innocent man's life can be ruined by unfortunate circumstances beyond his control." However, if one views Cliff as guilty, "It's a depiction of the extent to which someone can literally get away with murder." In referencing the ending of the film, Swanson asks if Cliff is guilty, "Are we supposed to forgive one death he caused because of the lives he saved?" Swanson concludes that another purpose of the scene is to build up the theme of "Hollywood mythology". Referring to the scene's allusion to Natalie Wood, she writes "the myths last, while the truth is lost in an ocean vaster than the rolling neon streets of the Hollywood of yore." Lindsey Romain says the scene is "a Rorschach Test for the audience". She argues that how the viewer interprets the scene changes the interpretation of the ending of the film. If Cliff murdered Billie then he is despicable and the killings he commits at the end are self-serving. However, if he is innocent then he is a hero. Romain writes "either read is accurate, and both feel purposeful." By leaving Billie's death open-ended, Romain believes Tarantino is asking, "Is Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood a touching fable about reclaiming relevance, or a horror story about a business that forgives heinous acts the second righteousness is procured?" Romain concludes that "maybe it's both," and "about art...about violence and how we participate in and consume it." Red Apple ad Writing for The Washington Post, Sonny Bunch commented on the mid-credits Red Apple cigarettes advertisement scene. He believes it is a commentary of current filmmaking and a "pitch-perfect parody of the films that have dominated box office charts in recent history." Bunch compares the fake ad to the real ones used as mid-credit scenes in the DC, Marvel, and Fast & Furious franchises. The scenes in those films are used to advertise the next film in their franchise. He also notes how those ads tie their franchises' universes together just as Red Apple does with the Tarantino universe. Cultural references The title is a reference to director Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America. On the poster of Dalton's film Red Blood Red Skin, inspired by Land Raiders, he appears with Telly Savalas. The posters for the two films are the same, except with Dalton replacing George Maharis. The movie Voytek Frykowski is watching is Teenage Monster, presented by horror host Seymour. Archive footage from many films is included in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, including C.C. and Company, Lady in Cement, Three in the Attic, and The Wrecking Crew, in which Sharon Tate appears as Freya Carlson. Three scenes were digitally altered, replacing the original actors with Rick Dalton. One from an episode of The F.B.I., entitled "All the Streets Are Silent", in which Dalton appears as the character portrayed by Burt Reynolds in the actual episode. Another from Death on the Run, with Dalton's face imposed over Ty Hardin's. The third is from The Great Escape, with Dalton appearing as Virgil Hilts, the role made famous by Steve McQueen. For The 14 Fists of McCluskey, a World War II film-within-the-film starring Dalton, footage and music from Hell River is used. Connections to other Tarantino films Cliff Booth is a reference to Brad Pitt's character in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Lt. Aldo Raine, a special forces WWII veteran who takes the cover of a stuntman. One of Rick Dalton's Italian films in the movie is directed by real-life director Antonio Margheriti. Antonio Margheriti is also used as an alias for Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) in Inglourious Basterds. The scene involving Dalton playing a character who burns Nazis with a flamethrower is similar to the ending of Inglourious Basterds, which ends with Nazi leadership being burned to death. The final scene features Dalton in a commercial for fictional Red Apple cigarettes, which appear in many Tarantino films. Additionally another common Tarantino brand Big Kahuna Burger is advertised on a billboard. When Dalton and Booth get back from Italy they walk by the blue mosaic wall in LAX, the same wall that the title character in Tarantino's Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) moves past in the opening credits of that film. The characters of stunt coordinator husband and wife, Randy (Kurt Russell) and Janet Lloyd (Zoë Bell) are an homage to characters in Tarantino's Death Proof; Stuntman Mike McKay (Russell) and Zoë Bell who plays herself, a stunt woman. In the film, Bruce Lee engages in a fight with Cliff Booth on the set of The Green Hornet. The Green Hornet theme song is featured in Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1. The masks worn by the Crazy 88 gang in that film are the same as Lee's mask as Kato in The Green Hornet. The car Booth drives is a 1964 blue Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible. It is the same year, color, make and model of the car that Beatrix "the Bride" Kiddo (Uma Thurman) drives in Kill Bill: Volume 2. Similarly, Rick Dalton's 1966 Cadillac de Ville is the same car driven by Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) in Reservoir Dogs. It was owned by Madsen. Historical accuracy and influence In a scene, Sharon Tate goes into Larry Edmunds Bookshop and purchases a copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In real life, Tate gave a copy to Roman Polanski shortly before her death. In 1978 Polanski directed the film adaptation, Tess (1979), dedicating it to Tate. Tate and Polanski's Yorkie Terrier in the film is named "Dr. Sapirstein", as was Tate's Yorkie in real life, named after the doctor portrayed by Ralph Bellamy in Rosemary's Baby. The carrier she puts the dog in is the one that Tate actually owned. In the film, Tate goes to see The Wrecking Crew at the Fox Bruin Theater. She convinces the theater's employees that she stars in the movie after they fail to recognize her. Tarantino stated the scene came from a personal experience. When True Romance was released, he saw it at the same theater, where he eventually convinced its employees that he wrote the script.: 39:00–42:00  The outfit Margot Robbie wears in the scene is based on the one Tate wore in Eye of the Devil. On the set of Batman, for a crossover episode with The Green Hornet, a fight was scripted with Kato (Bruce Lee) losing to Dick Grayson's Robin (Burt Ward). When Lee received the script, he refused to do it, so it was changed to a draw. When the cameras rolled, Lee stalked Ward until Ward backed away. Lee laughed and told him he was "lucky it is a TV show." Stuntman Gene LeBell carried Lee around in a Fireman's Carry when he first arrived on The Green Hornet set in response to Lee being tough on stuntmen. In the film, stuntman Cliff Booth fights Lee on the set of The Green Hornet; the fight ends in a draw. Booth refers to Lee as "Kato". According to Rudolph Altobelli, who rented the house to Polanski and Tate, in March 1969, Charles Manson showed up. Polanski's friend, Iranian photographer Shahrokh Hatami (who directed the short documentary Mia and Roman) also said he saw Manson enter the grounds. Hatami approached Manson, asking him what he wanted. He told Hatami he was looking for Terry Melcher. Hatami responded the house was the Polanski residence and perhaps Melcher lived in the guest house. Altobelli told Manson that Melcher no longer lived there. This happens in the film, with Jay Sebring in place of Altobelli and Hatami. On the night of August 8, 1969, Patricia Krenwinkel, Tex Watson, and Susan Atkins broke into Tate's house, murdering her and four others.: 176–180  In the film, they go to Tate's house to commit the murders but instead end up breaking into Dalton's house after he interrupts them. Linda Kasabian went along that night, though she did not murder anyone and stayed outside the whole time as a lookout. In the film, she goes along and does not murder anyone but takes off and does not stay. Watson told his victims, "I'm the Devil, and I'm here to do the Devil's business." In the film, he says it to Cliff Booth. In the film, Atkins convinces the others to seek revenge by killing Rick Dalton, star of a TV western. Since TV taught them to kill, it is fitting they kill the guy from TV, and "My idea is to kill the people who taught us to kill!" In real life, Manson Family member Nancy Pitman said: "We are what you have made us. We were brought up on your TV. We were brought up watching Gunsmoke and Have Gun – Will Travel." Sandra Good said: "You want to talk about devils and demonic and immorals and evil, go to Hollywood. We don't touch the evil of that world. We don't even skim it." In the film when the four Manson Family members who drive to Tate's house are sitting outside in their car, Rick Dalton comes out of his house and yells at them to leave. In real-life the four members stopped at the house of Rudolf Weber, down the street from Tate's house. Weber came out and yelled at them to leave. Weber told the police he was tired of hippies on his street. Clem Grogan was convicted of the murder of stuntman Donald Shea on Spahn Ranch, whom he repeatedly beat with a lead pipe. In the film, Grogan is instead beaten by stuntman Cliff Booth. The 1959 Ford Galaxie driven by the Manson Family is a detailed replica of the car used in the Tate–LaBianca murders. Car coordinator Steven Butcher found the actual car, but after a meeting with Tarantino, they decided using it would be "too creepy". Boeing 747s are used in several airliner scenes, but were not in commercial use until 1970; the film is set in 1969. Character controversies Bruce Lee The film's depiction of Bruce Lee drew criticism. In the film, Lee is asked on a film set whether he could defeat Muhammad Ali in a fight, to which he responds that he would "make him a cripple". Cliff responds with laughter, causing Lee to challenge him to a fight. Although Lee initially kicks Cliff to the ground, Cliff manages to throw Lee into the side of a car. Fans and contemporaries of Lee, including his protégé Dan Inosanto, criticized the portrayal. Lee's daughter Shannon described the depiction as "an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air" and that "they didn't need to treat him in the way White Hollywood did when he was alive." Lee's student and friend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who starred with Lee in Game of Death, stated that Tarantino's portrayal of Lee was "sloppy and somewhat racist". Mike Moh, who played Lee, said he was conflicted at first: "Bruce in my mind was literally a God. [He] didn't always have the most affection for stuntmen; he didn't respect all of them." He stated, "Tarantino loves Bruce Lee; he reveres him." Brad Pitt and stunt coordinator Robert Alonzo objected to an extended version of the fight in which Lee loses. According to Lee's friend and The Green Hornet stuntman Gene LeBell, Lee had a reputation for "kicking the shit out of the stuntmen. They couldn't convince him that he could go easy and it would still look great on film." In the 2018 Bruce Lee: A Life, Lee's biographer Matthew Polly wrote, Lee would jump-kick people on the set. According to Lee's co-star Van Williams, it stopped when "He dislocated [a set designer's] jaw." Polly continued, "Bruce insisted on close quarters combat. The stuntmen hated it." Williams said, "[The stuntmen] ... didn't want to work on the show. They were tired of getting hurt." LeBell was tasked with "calming Bruce down." According to Williams, Lee's treatment of stuntmen drove the show's stunt coordinator Bennie Dobbins to want to fight [him]. Tarantino responded, saying Lee was "kind of an arrogant guy," and that Lee's widow, Linda, wrote in her 1975 book Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew that he could beat Muhammad Ali. She wrote, "Even the most scathing critics admitted that Bruce's Gung fu was sensational. One critic wrote, 'Those who watched him would bet on Lee to render Cassius Clay (Ali) senseless if they were put in a room and told anything goes.'" In 1972, Lee himself stated: "Everybody says I must fight Ali some day. ... Look at my hand. That's a little Chinese hand. He'd kill me." Shannon filed a complaint with the China Film Administration affecting the film's release in China unless alterations were made. After Tarantino refused to remove the scene, China cancelled the release of the film on October 18, 2019, one week before its release date there. Sharon Tate After being contacted over concerns, Tarantino invited a representative of Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate's widower, over to his house to read the script and report back to Polanski, to assure him "he didn't have anything to worry about". Tarantino stated: "When it comes to Polanski, we're talking about a tragedy that would be unfathomable for most human beings," and that he did not contact him while writing it, as he did not want to cause him anxiety. Despite this, Polanski's wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, criticized Tarantino for using Polanski's likeness after the film's premiere. Debra Tate, Sharon's sister, initially opposed the film, saying it was exploitative and perpetuated mistruths: "To celebrate the killers and the darkest portion of society as being sexy or acceptable in any way, shape or form is just perpetuating the worst of our society." After Tarantino contacted her and showed her the script, she withdrew her opposition, saying: "This movie is not what people would expect it to be when you combine the Tarantino and Manson names." She felt that Tarantino was a "very stand-up guy"; after visiting the set, she was impressed by Robbie and lent her some of Sharon's jewelry and perfume to wear in the film. After the premiere, journalist Farah Nayeri asked Tarantino why Robbie had so few lines. Tarantino responded, "I reject your hypothesis." Robbie elaborated, "I think the moments on screen show those wonderful sides of [Tate] could be adequately done without speaking." Tarantino said, "I thought it would both be touching and pleasurable and also sad and melancholy to just spend a little time with [Tate], just existing... I wanted you to see Sharon a lot." Manson Family Charles Manson was convicted of the murders of Tate and four others, despite not being present, due mostly to a theory presented by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi that Manson was trying to instigate an apocalyptic race war, leaving only Black Muslims: 246  and the Family. According to the theory, the Black Muslims: 246  would eventually look to Manson to lead them. According to members of the Family – Paul Watkins, Juan Flynn and Barbara Hoyt – Manson referred to the race war as Helter Skelter, getting the name from the song of the same name.: 244–247, 334, 361–362  Musician and filmmaker Boots Riley criticized Tarantino's film for not portraying Bugliosi's Helter Skelter narrative, or depicting the Family as white supremacists, as did Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times, in which she wrote that portraying the Manson Family as hippies is "a more bankable image than Manson the ignorant white supremacist." However, according to members of The Family – Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, Catherine Share, and Ruth Ann Moorehouse – the Tate murders were not perpetrated to start Helter Skelter, but as copycat murders mirroring that of Gary Hinman, in an attempt to convince police the killer was still at large,: 426–435  and get Bobby Beausoleil released from jail, as he was charged with Hinman's murder. He stated the murders had nothing to do with race. According to Jay Sebring's protégé and business partner Jim Markham, who provided original Sebring hair products for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the murders were instigated by a drug deal gone bad, not a race war. He believes Manson was at Tate's house the day before the murders to sell drugs to Sebring and Voytek Frykowski, which resulted in the two beating Manson up. In his interview with Truman Capote, Beausoleil said, "They burned people on dope deals. Sharon Tate and that gang." On The Joe Rogan Experience, Tarantino said he thought Bugliosi's theory was "bullshit". He believes Manson never sent anyone over to Tate's house to murder anyone, and that the murders happened spontaneously. Related projects Novels Once Upon a Time in Hollywood In November 2020, Tarantino signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins. On June 29, 2021, he published his first novel, an adaptation of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The audiobook is narrated by Jennifer Jason Leigh who previously starred in Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. According to Tarantino, her Hateful Eight character Daisy Domergue was "A Manson girl out west, like Susan Atkins or something." According to Tarantino, the novel is "a complete rethinking of the entire story," and adds details to various sequences and characters, including multiple chapters dedicated to the backstory of Cliff Booth. The novel also departs from the film, the film's finale occurs towards the beginning of the novel, and its aftermath includes Rick Dalton earning newfound fame as a regular on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It also focuses on Charles Manson's pursuit of a music career, the "inner worlds" of Sharon Tate and Trudi Frazer, and has a whole chapter focused on actor Aldo Ray.: 337–349 The Films of Rick Dalton In June 2021, Tarantino revealed he wrote and plans to publish a second novel connected to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood about the films of Rick Dalton.: 45:00–47:00  The book details every film and TV series of Dalton's entire career, some of which are completely fictional but the majority of Dalton's work are real, with Dalton replacing the actors who actually starred in the films.: 46:00–48:00  In it, Cliff Booth writes a film for Dalton featuring a flamethrower, which they produce and Dalton directs.: 47:00–49:00 Film and television Extended cut On August 5, 2019, it was announced that a four-hour cut of the film may be coming to Netflix. On January 3, 2020, Collider confirmed the statement in an interview with Quentin Tarantino, revealing the extended-cut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would probably be available in approximately one year. In June 2021 Tarantino said the extended cut would probably be released "in a couple of years." It will be around three hours and 20 minutes and be released theatrically.: 38:00–40:00 Bounty Law Also in 2019, Tarantino expressed interest in creating a Bounty Law television series based on five half-hour scripts he wrote in preparation for the film and that he plans on writing three more episodes. Tarantino said he does not know who would play Jake Cahill, the lead but added "if [Leonardo DiCaprio] wants to do it that'd be great." The series would be shot in black and white and follow the half-hour format of Western television shows from the 1950s. Scenes from the episodes already written appear in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino plans on directing all episodes of the series. Lancer Tarantino hopes Robert Rodriguez will turn Tarantino's version of Lancer in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood into a film.: 37:00–38:00 Stage In June 2021 Tarantino announced his plan to produce a stage adaptation of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He already wrote the play, which takes place in Italy. The entire second act consists of Rick Dalton, Marvin Schwarz, and Sergio Corbucci having dinner in Rome. In popular culture On August 6, 2021, the rock band Twin Atlantic released a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood-themed music video for their song "Bang On the Gong," with lead singer, Sam McTrusty taking inspiration from Rick Dalton. During the opening credits of the Japanese anime, Chainsaw Man, the opening scene of the movie has been referenced. See also Quentin Tarantino filmography List of films featuring hallucinogens List of films featuring fictional films Metamodernism Notes References External links Official website Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at IMDb Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at AllMovie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at Box Office Mojo Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at Rotten Tomatoes

Julia_Butters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Butters

Julia Butters (born April 15, 2009) is an American actress. She is known for her role in the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Actor/Actress, and for her role as Reggie Fabelman in The Fabelmans (2022). Early life Butters was born in Los Angeles, California, to parents Lorelei and Darrin; her father is a Disney animator who has worked on films such as Frozen and Ralph Breaks the Internet. Career Julia Butters began her career doing commercials. Her first speaking role was the role of Gabby in Criminal Minds. In 2016, Butters portrayed the recurring role of Ella in the Amazon Prime Video series Transparent. Later that year, she began starring in the ABC sitcom American Housewife as Anna-Kat Otto. When Quentin Tarantino was writing the script of his ninth film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he spotted Butters on television, and later cast her in the role of precocious child actress Trudi Fraser. After she received critical acclaim for this role, Butters decided to pursue similar opportunities, leading her to leave American Housewife after four seasons. In December 2020, Butters was cast in Netflix’s The Gray Man. In June 2021, it was announced that Butters was cast in The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film as Reggie Fabelman, a character based on Spielberg's sister Anne. In August 2022, Butters was cast as Lily in the film Queen of Bones. Filmography Film Television Awards and nominations References External links Julia Butters at IMDb Julia Butters on Twitter

Tim_Allsop_&_Stewart_Williams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Allsop_&_Stewart_Williams

Tim Allsop and Stewart Williams are a British writing and directing duo. They met in 2005 working for Elisabeth Murdoch’s production company Shine Limited. Their first joint work was a Comedy Lab for Channel 4 starring Alex Zane which they wrote, produced, and directed. Since then they have written for a variety of comedy and entertainment shows for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, as well directing music videos and commercials – most recently for the Guitar Hero brand. In 2007 they began working on a pilot for Plus One in the Comedy Showcase strand for Channel 4 which they made with production company Kudos. They have also written episodes for The Amazing World of Gumball and recently and written episodes for Space Chickens in Space, as well as developed the bible for Disney EMEA for the show as well. Tim Allsop is currently a producer on Who Is America and Stewart Williams recently wrote an episode of Famalam. References External links Tim Allsop at IMDb Stewart Williams at IMDb Official Website for Plus One

Elisabeth_Murdoch_(businesswoman)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Murdoch_(businesswoman)

Elisabeth Murdoch (born 22 August 1968) is an Australian-born British and American media executive based in the United Kingdom. She was a non-executive chairperson of Shine Group, the UK-based TV programme production company she founded in 2001, until the company's parent 21st Century Fox merged its Shine Group division with Apollo Global Management's Endemol and Core Media production houses, to specialise in reality TV, in 2015. She is the daughter of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and is widely believed to be the inspiration for the character Shiv Roy in the television series Succession. As of September 2024, the whole Murdoch family is involved in a court case in the US in which Elisabeth, her brother James, and elder half-sister Prudence are challenging their father's bid to amend the family trust to ensure that his eldest son, Lachlan, retains control of News Corp and Fox Corp, rather than benefiting all of his six children, as is specified in the "irrevocable" terms of the trust. Early life and education Elisabeth Murdoch was born on 22 August 1968 at King George V Memorial Hospital in Sydney. Her father is the media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, and her mother is his second wife, journalist and author Anna Maria dePeyster (née Torv). Elisabeth Murdoch was named after her grandmother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. She is the eldest of three in her birth family, with two younger brothers, Lachlan and James. They all came after their elder half-sister, Prudence MacLeod (born 1958), from Rupert's first marriage to Patricia Booker, but they grew up together in London (after 1968) and then New York (after 1974). Elisabeth Murdoch completed her secondary education at the Brearley School in New York City, and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Career Murdoch began her career as a manager of programme acquisitions at her father's FX Networks, a cable television unit based in Los Angeles. Operating as EP Communications on 22 September 1994, Murdoch and her then-husband Elkin Kwesi Pianim purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations (KSBW and KSBY) in California on a US$35 million loan, being secured by her father. Murdoch moved with her husband to the UK, where her father Rupert Murdoch was running BSkyB (which was struggling financially). After Sam Chisholm joined the company to manage the day-to-day operations and build the subscriber base, Murdoch served as his second-in-command and de facto apprentice. By the time Chisholm left the company, BSkyB was the most profitable company in the UK. As a managing director, Murdoch oversaw BSkyB's £12 million sponsorship of the troubled Millennium Dome. However, she also faced criticism after brokering her father's failed £623.4 million bid for English Premier League club Manchester United. In 2000 Murdoch resigned from the family business, and in March 2001 founded the television production company Shine Limited, which produced hit shows such as MasterChef. The company expanded under her leadership, acquiring other production companies including Princess Productions and Kudos, which had made Spooks and Broadchurch. In 2011, Shine Group was acquired by News Corporation in a controversial deal that raised questions about nepotism, with Murdoch pocketing a personal profit of around £130m, despite Shine having a large debt bill. After 21st Century Fox merged Shine with Endemol and Core Media in 2014, Murdoch stepped down as chair of the company. In 2018, Murdoch produced a dating reality show called Phone Swap, which was originally aired on Snapchat. In 2019, Murdoch set up her global TV and film production and development company called Sister Pictures, which is headquartered in London with offices in Los Angeles. Sister Pictures had a deal with Chris Goldberg and his Winterlight Pictures company, and Murdoch also had a deal with American actor Jeremy Strong. As of 2023 she is executive chair of Sister Pictures. Other activities Murdoch has served on many organisational boards, including Afiniti. Murdoch delivered the 2012 MacTaggart Lecture at the 2012 Edinburgh International Television Festival, after which her father did not speak to her for two months. She afterwards regretted not speaking more positively about her brother James, who had been involved in the News International phone hacking scandal in 2011. Recognition and honours Murdoch was appointed as the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to diversity in the arts and to charity, based on her work as a council member on the Arts Council England. Influence and media coverage In later 2012, The New Yorker published a lengthy profile of Murdoch. In February 2013, Murdoch was assessed as the fifth most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. In 2014, she was highest placed UK-based woman in the "MediaGuardian 100". Murdoch is widely understood to be the inspiration for the character Shiv Roy in the television series Succession, which is based on the Murdoch family. Aspects of Murdoch's career, including her troubled stint at BSkyB, are mirrored by the Shiv character. According to Murdoch's daughter, Charlotte Freud, the notion the series is based on the family is accurate. Freud has said "my mum is very Shiv" but that her mother disagrees with that view. According to Succession star Brian Cox, when he met Murdoch's husband Keith Tyson in a London café Tyson confirmed that the couple were fans of the show. Personal life Murdoch is a dual national of the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2008, she hosted a fund-raising event for then Senator Barack Obama at her home in Notting Hill in London. Murdoch's first marriage was to a fellow Vassar graduate, Elkin Kwesi Pianim, an associate in the New York corporate finance department of the Rothschild investment bank. He is the son of Ghananian-born economist and financier Kwame Pianim and Dutch-born Cornelia Pianim. The wedding was held on 10 September 1993 at St. Timothy Catholic Church near the Beverly Hills residence of the bride's parents. They have two children, but divorced in 1998. Murdoch's second marriage was to public relations executive Matthew Freud, the son of former MP Sir Clement Freud and great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. The couple married on 18 August 2001 in a ceremony at Blenheim Palace, and have two children. From 2008, the family resided at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire, where they were key members of the Chipping Norton set. Freud had a poor relationship with his father-in-law, and did not invite him to his 50th birthday party in 2013. The couple owned a home in Notting Hill, London, before filing for divorce in October 2014. In 2017 Murdoch married artist Keith Tyson. She has an elder half-sister, Prudence MacLeod, and two younger half-sisters, Grace and Chloe, from her father's third marriage to Wendi Deng Murdoch. She lives in the UK, as of 2014 residing in the St John's Wood area of London. She is known for her passion for the arts, and is said to have more left-leaning political views than her father, or brother Lachlan. Family court case In September 2024, the whole Murdoch family is involved in a court case in Reno, Nevada, in which Elisabeth, her brother James Murdoch, and half-sister Prudence are challenging their father's bid to amend the family trust to ensure that his eldest son, Lachlan, retains control of News Corp and Fox Corp, rather than benefiting all of his six children, as is specified in the "irrevocable" terms of the trust. According to The New York Times, Murdoch Snr wants his companies to remain politically conservative, and sees his other children as too politically liberal. The irrevocable family trust was set up after Rupert and Anna Murdoch's divorce in 1999, to hold the family's 28.5% stake in News Corp. It relates only to the children born before then, giving them equal say in the fate of the business after Rupert's death. Chloe and Grace Murdoch, Rupert's children with third wife Wendi Deng, will have no say in the business, although will share the stock proceeds. The case follows Rupert's attempt to change the trust in 2023, and the Nevada probate commissioner's finding that he was allowed to amend the trust "if he is able to show he is acting in good faith and for the sole benefit of his heirs". Rupert Murdoch is arguing interference by the other siblings would cause a financial loss to Fox, and therefore "in their own best interests if they have their votes taken away from them". He argues that preserving the outlet's conservative editorial stance against interference by the more politically moderate siblings would better protect its commercial value. The case has led to the three children becoming estranged from their father, with none of them attending his wedding to his fifth wife, Elena Zhukova, in June 2024. References External links Shine Group Archived 6 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine Elisabeth Murdoch at IMDb Elisabeth Murdoch collected news and commentary at The Guardian Elisabeth Murdoch: The savvy, skill and style to head up the empire, Ian Burrell, The Independent, 22 February 2011 'The Heiress', Ken Auletta, The New Yorker, 10 December 2012

Vassar_College

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassar_College

Vassar College ( VASS-ər) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1969. The college offers BA degrees in more than fifty majors. Vassar College's varsity sports teams, known as the Brewers, play in the NCAA's Division III as members of the Liberty League. Currently, there are close to 2,500 students. The college is one of the historic Seven Sisters. The Vassar campus comprises over 1,000 acres (400 ha) and more than 100 buildings. A designated arboretum, the campus features more than 200 species of trees, a native plant preserve, and a 530-acre (210 ha) ecological preserve. History Vassar was founded as a women's school under the name Vassar Female College in 1861. Its first president was Milo P. Jewett, who had previously been first president of another women's school, Judson College; he led a staff of ten professors and twenty-one instructors. After one year, its founder, Matthew Vassar, had the word Female removed from the name, prompting some local residents of Poughkeepsie, New York, to quip that its founder believed it might one day admit male students. The college became coeducational in 1969. Vassar was the second of the Seven Sisters colleges, higher education schools that were strictly for women, and historically sister institutions to the all-male Ivy League colleges. It was chartered by its namesake, brewer Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the Hudson Valley, about 70 miles (110 km) north of New York City. The first person appointed to the Vassar faculty was astronomer Maria Mitchell, in 1865. Vassar adopted coeducation in 1969. Immediately following World War II, Vassar accepted a small number of male students on the G.I. Bill. The formal decision to become co-ed came after its trustees declined an offer to merge with Yale University, its sibling institution, in the wave of mergers between the historically all-male colleges of the Ivy League and their Seven Sisters counterparts. In its early years, Vassar was associated with the social elite of the Protestant establishment. E. Digby Baltzell writes that "upper-class WASP families educated their children at colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Vassar." A select and elite few of Vassar's students were allowed entry into the school's secret society Delta Sigma Rho, founded in 1922. Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Trustee. Approximately 2,450 students attend Vassar, and 98% live on campus. About 60% come from public high schools, and 40% come from private schools (both independent and religious). Vassar is currently 56% women and 44% men, at national average for national liberal arts colleges. Students are taught by more than 336 faculty members, virtually all holding the doctorate degree or its equivalent. The student-faculty ratio is 8:1, average class size, 17. In recent freshman classes, students of color constituted 32–38% of matriculants. International students from over 60 countries make up 8-10% of the student body. In May 2007, Vassar returned to a need-blind admissions policy without regard to a student's financial status. Vassar president Catharine Bond Hill departed in 2016. She was succeeded by Elizabeth Howe Bradley in 2017. The college was listed as a census-designated place (Vassar College CDP) in 2019. Presidents Campus The campus is in Poughkeepsie Town, adjacent to Poughkeepsie City. The area around the campus appeared as a census-designated place (CDP) in the 2020 U.S. Census, with a population of 2,472. Architecture Vassar's campus, also an arboretum, is 1,000 acres (400 ha) and has more than 100 buildings, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International, with several buildings of architectural interest. At the center of campus stands Main Building, one of the best examples of Second Empire architecture in the United States. When it was opened, Main Building was the largest building in the U.S. in terms of floor space. It formerly housed the entire college, including classrooms, dormitories, museum, library, and dining halls. The building was designed by Smithsonian architect James Renwick Jr. and was completed in 1865. It was preceded on campus by the original observatory. Both buildings are National Historic Landmarks. Rombout House was purchased by the college in 1915 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Eero Saarinen made designs for several Vassar dormitories, but only one, the Emma Hartman Noyes House, was completed in 1958. Built for roughly 160 students, it was the first part of a circular construction that was to be continued in "Noyes II." The starkly modernist building's high cost and structural difficulties with the windows, however, led administrators to leave it at one. The dorm's common area is famous for its futuristic design; readings and concerts are held there regularly. The Noyes building was also the home of an all-female football team, the Noyes Nymphs, who competed against Ivy League teams in the 1960s and 1970s. Libraries Vassar is home to one of the largest undergraduate library collections in the U.S. The library collection today – which actually encompasses eight libraries at Vassar – contains about 1 million volumes and 7,500 serial, periodical and newspaper titles, as well as an extensive collection of microfilm and microfiche, with special collections of Ellen Swallow Richards, Albert Einstein, Mary McCarthy, and Elizabeth Bishop. Vassar has been a Federal Depository library for selected U.S. Government documents since 1943 and currently receives approximately 25% of the titles available through the Federal Depository Program. The interior and exterior of the Van Ingen Art Library was renovated from June 2008 – May 2009 in an effort to restore its original design and appearance. This was the library's first major renovation since its construction in 1937. Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center In November 2016, the gallery opened the Hoene Hoy Photography gallery on the second floor, named after Anne Hoene Hoy from the class of 1963. Capital improvements In 2011, Vassar embarked on a $120 million project to improve science facilities at the college, centering on the construction of a new Bridge for Laboratory Sciences. Davison, one of Vassar's nine residence houses, was renovated during the 2008–2009 school year. During the year of renovation, Davison's residents were absorbed into the college's remaining residence houses. This was the second dorm to be renovated as part of the school's master plan to renovate all dorms, following Jewett a few years earlier. Lathrop was scheduled to be closed and renovated during the 2010–2011 school year, but complete renovation was postponed due to the economic downturn, with a number of improvements phased in instead. Improvements were also made to Josselyn in 2011. Housing Vassar maintains housing for faculty; the current complex opened in 2023. The previous faculty housing facility, Williams, was to be demolished after 2020. School-age dependents living on the Vassar faculty complex, as well as other areas in the Vassar College CDP, are within the Arlington Central School District, which operates Arlington High School. Academics The most popular undergraduate majors, based on 2021 graduates, were: Biology/Biological Sciences (40) Economics (37) Political Science and Government (36) English Language and Literature (33) Biochemistry (25) Neuroscience (25) Computer and Information Sciences (23) Admissions For the class of 2027 (enrolling fall 2023), Vassar received 12,145 applications and accepted 17.7%. The combined average SAT scores of those who opted to submit their testing data was 1489 and the ACT composite average was 33. The middle 50% ranges for the SAT were 1450-1530 and 33-35 for the ACT. Of the matriculants whose high schools provided rankings, 79% were in the top ten percent of their class. For the class of 2026 (enrolling fall 2022), Vassar received 11,412 applications and accepted 18.7%. For the class of 2025 (enrolling fall 2021), Vassar received 10,884 applications, a 25% increase over the previous year, and accepted 2,068 (19%). For the class of 2023 (enrolling fall 2019), Vassar received 8,961 applications and accepted 2,127 (23.7%), with 691 enrolling. For the class of 2025 (enrolling fall 2021),the middle 50% range of SAT scores for enrolling freshmen was 710-760 for evidence-based reading and writing, 710-780 for math, and 1420-1540 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28-33 for math, 32-34 for English, and 32-34 for the composite. Students of color (including non-citizens) made up 45.5% of the incoming class; international students were 8.8% of enrolling freshmen. Rankings The 2025 edition of U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges" ranked Vassar as tied for the 12th best liberal arts college in the U.S. out of 211 rated. In previous years the college was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as high as tenth. In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked Vassar second for "Best Colleges for Veterans", 29th for "Best Value", 15th for "Top Performers on Social Mobility", and tied for 20th in "Best Undergraduate Teaching". It also ranked Vassar tied for fourth among top liberal arts colleges for economic diversity as measured by low-income students receiving federal Pell Grants. In its 2021 edition, Washington Monthly ranked Vassar 11th among 215 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. In its 2020 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar first for "Best Financial Aid" of all colleges and universities in the United States. In its 2018 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar second best for financial aid and 41st best for "best value". In 2019, Forbes rated Vassar 27th among liberal arts colleges and 61st overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges. Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Vassar 11th in its 2019 ranking of the 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States. Money magazine ranked Vassar 145th in the country out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 "Best Colleges for Your Money" edition. In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Vassar president emeritus Catharine Bond Hill argued that rankings "will always be limited in what they can tell consumers. Part of higher education's role about the rankings should be to remind students and their families that these are only one piece of information that they should take into account in deciding where to go to college. Intangibles will and should play a role in these decisions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't also look at the tangibles". Post-graduation outcomes Over half of Vassar graduates pursue advanced study within five years of graduation, including one-fifth immediately post-graduation. Of the seniors who applied to medical school in 2017, 76% were accepted; to law school, 96% were accepted. Student life Traditions Founder's Day is an annual campus festival at Vassar College that usually takes place in late April or early May. It started as a surprise birthday party for college founder Matthew Vassar's seventy-fourth birthday and evolved into an annual celebration. Originally, Founder's Day was a spontaneous event consisting of lectures, but was soon replaced with plays, pageants, and more recreational activities. Circus and fair activities followed, with the eventual addition of the modern day music events over the course of two days. More recently themes have been added, including Alice in Wonderland, Dinosaurs, Vintage 1800s Vassar, Nickelodeon, Nintendo, and Candyland. Recent artists at Founder's Day have included The Walkmen, Edan, DJ /rupture, Odd Nosdam, Jel, Toro y Moi, and Odesza. Extracurricular organizations The Night Owls, established in the 1940s, are, as of 2017, one of the oldest extant collegiate a cappella groups in the United States, and one of nine vocal music groups at Vassar. Other groups include the Vastards (specializing in the music of the 2000s), Broadway and More (BAM; showtunes), the Accidentals (the Axies; the sole all-men's a cappella group at Vassar), Beauty and the Beats (focusing on music from Disney movies), Home Brewed (formerly Matthew's Minstrels, the college's first mixed-gender a cappella group), the Vassar Devils, Measure 4 Measure (both themeless groups), and AirCappella (an all-whistling ensemble). Some a cappella groups tour and compete, including the Vassar Devils, who competed in the 2015 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. The Philaletheis Society, which was founded in 1865 as a literary society, is the oldest theater group on campus. It has now become a completely student run theater group. Others include Unbound (experimental theater), Woodshed (a troupe focused on devised theater), and Idlewild (an all-female ensemble). Britomartis, Vassar's only theater group exclusively creating devised theater, was founded in 2011. Further groups include the Future Waitstaff of America (for musical theater), Ebony Theatre Ensemble (focusing on Black theater), and two Shakespeare-specific troupes, Shakespeare Troupe and Merely Players. The college also hosts the Powerhouse Summer Theater workshop series. Happily Ever Laughter ("HEL") is the college's oldest continually active sketch comedy group, founded in 1993. Another comedy group, Big K!dz (formerly No Offense), which was started by two former members of an earlier group called Laughingstock (for which recognition by the student assembly was withdrawn in March 2000, as a result of a controversial sketch), was started in September 2000. Another sketch comedy group, The Limit, was started a few years later. Indecent Exposure, an all-women's troupe performing both sketch and stand-up comedy, was founded in 2004. Comedy Normative, which began in 2009, performs exclusively stand-up comedy. Vassar has a tradition of improv comedy groups, which continue today. The Vassar Greens are Vassar's environmental group. Vassar College Television (VCTV) is the college's first student-run video production company. Campus publications The Miscellany News has been the weekly paper of the college since 1866, making it one of the oldest college weeklies in the United States. It is available for free most Thursdays when school is in session Squirm "is a submissions-based magazine about sex and sexuality. Squirm seeks to create a sex-positive forum on campus for the artistic, literary, and creative exploration of sex." The magazine, published annually since 1999, typically runs around 60 pages and is only distributed to the campus community. Boilerplate Magazine is a student-run publication that calls itself an "alternative news source... that aims to publish radical pieces and creative works which address issues through a socially conscious lens." Due to its independence from collegiate funds, Boilerplate Magazine is generally more critical of the college than other student-run outlets. Unscrewed (1 October 1976 - 1 April 1989) was a student-run consumer report on campus residential and classroom safety, local food and drug price comparison, an annual local pizza delivery survey, and long-term topics such as the college's endowment and staffing. Radio station WVKR-FM, 91.3 FM, is the college's radio station, established in 1971. Student government In March 2016, in a 15–2 vote, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) passed a resolution calling for the support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and the boycott of Israel. In April 2016, the BDS resolution went to a school-wide referendum, where it was defeated 573–503. Athletics Vassar teams, known as the Brewers, compete in Division III of the NCAA, as a member of the Liberty League. The nickname originates from the college's founder and namesake Matthew Vassar, whose family ran a brewery in Poughkeepsie and would later amass a sizable fortune in the industry. In 2008, the Vassar men's volleyball team made the school's first appearance in a national championship game, beating UC Santa Cruz 3–0 in the semifinal before falling to Springfield in the championship game. In 2007, the Vassar cycling team hosted the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Championship in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, New York. The competition included a 100-mile (160 km) road race over the Shawangunk Mountains in New Paltz as well as a criterium in Poughkeepsie just blocks from the school's campus. In a controversial move, on November 5, 2009, the athletics department leaders decided the men's and women's rowing team would transition over a two-year period from a varsity to a club sport as a cost-saving measure. In 1940, 1941 and 1942, Vassar athletes won national intercollegiate women's tennis championships each year in both singles (Katharine Hubbell) and doubles (Hubbell, Carolyn "Lonny" Myers). In 2018, the Vassar women's rugby team won the school's first team national championship, beating Winona State 50–13 in the final of the USA Rugby Women's Division 2. Notable people Notable Vassar alumni include: Notable attendees who did not graduate from Vassar include: Julia Tutwiler, education and prison reform advocate Anthony Bourdain, professional chef and television personality Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States, book editor Brooke Hayward, actress, author, art collector Katharine Graham, The Washington Post publisher Susan Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation Anne Hathaway, actress Jane Fonda, actress Justin Long, actor Mike D, member of the Beastie Boys Mark Ronson, Academy Award-winning musician Rachael Yamagata, musician Curtis Sittenfeld, writer Notable Vassar faculty include: Maria Mitchell, pioneering female astronomer Grace Hopper, computer scientist Monique Wittig, philosopher Grace Macurdy, classicist Richard Edward Wilson, composer Uma Narayan, philosopher Mitchell Miller, philosopher Bryan W. Van Norden, philosopher James Merrell, historian Peter Stillman, political scientist Paul Russell, writer Hua Hsu, writer Nancy Willard, writer Frank Bergon, writer Michael Joyce, writer and pioneer of hypertext fiction See also List of coordinate colleges References Further reading Bruno, Maryann; Daniels, Elizabeth A. (2001). Vassar College. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-0454-4. Elet, Yvonne; Duncan, Virginia (2019). "Beatrix Farrand and campus landscape at Vassar: pedagogy and practice, 1925–29". Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes. 39 (2): 105–136. doi:10.1080/14601176.2018.1556509. S2CID 150106489. Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz (1993). Alma mater: design and experience in the women's colleges from their nineteenth-century beginnings to the 1930s (2nd ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachuchusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-869-8. online Solomon, Barbara Miller. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (Yale University Press, 1985) online External links Official website Vassar Athletics website Drone, Eaton S. (1879). "Vassar College" . The American Cyclopædia.

Yale_University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_University

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Yale was established as the Collegiate School in 1701 by Congregationalist clergy of the Connecticut Colony. Originally restricted to instructing ministers in theology and sacred languages, the school's curriculum expanded, incorporating humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew rapidly after 1890 due to the expansion of the physical campus and its scientific research programs. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools, including the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Yale Law School. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of 2023, the university's endowment was valued at $40.7 billion, the third largest of any educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Student athletes compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference. As of October 2020, 65 Nobel laureates, 5 Fields medalists, 4 Abel Prize laureates, and 3 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including 5 U.S. presidents, 10 Founding Fathers, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 31 living billionaires, 54 college founders and presidents, many heads of state, cabinet members and governors. Hundreds of members of Congress and many U.S. diplomats, 78 MacArthur Fellows, 263 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, 81 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 102 Guggenheim Fellows and 9 Mitchell Scholars have been affiliated with the university. Yale's current faculty include 67 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 55 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 187 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. History Early history of Yale College Origins Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School", a would-be charter passed in New Haven by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9, 1701. The Act was an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership. Soon after, a group of ten Congregational ministers, Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather (nephew of Increase Mather), Rev. James Noyes II (son of James Noyes), James Pierpont, Abraham Pierson, Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, and Timothy Woodbridge, all Harvard alumni, met in the study of Reverend Samuel Russell, in Branford, to donate books to form the school's library. The group, led by James Pierpont, is now known as "The Founders". Known from its origin as the "Collegiate School", the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, who is considered Yale's first president. Pierson lived in Killingworth. The school moved to Saybrook in 1703, when the first treasurer of Yale, Nathaniel Lynde, donated land and a building. In 1716, it moved to New Haven. Meanwhile, there was a rift forming at Harvard between its sixth president, Increase Mather, and the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad in Church polity. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the Collegiate School in the hope it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way Harvard had not. Rev. Jason Haven, minister at the First Church and Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, had been considered for the presidency on account of his orthodox theology and "Neatness dignity and purity of Style [which] surpass those of all that have been mentioned", but was passed over due to his "very Valetudinary and infirm State of Health". Naming and development In 1718, at the behest of either Rector Samuel Andrew or the colony's Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted the Boston-born businessman Elihu Yale to ask for money to construct a new building for the college. Through the persuasion of Jeremiah Dummer, Yale, who had made a fortune in Madras while working for the East India Company as the first president of Fort St. George, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum of money. Cotton Mather suggested the school change its name to "Yale College". The name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of the Welsh name Iâl, which had been used for the family estate at Plas yn Iâl, near Llandegla, Wales. Meanwhile, a Harvard graduate working in England convinced 180 prominent intellectuals to donate books to Yale. The 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science, philosophy and theology. It had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. Undergraduate Jonathan Edwards discovered John Locke's works and developed his "new divinity". In 1722 the rector and six friends, who had a study group to discuss the new ideas, announced they had given up Calvinism, become Arminians, and joined the Church of England. They were ordained in England and returned to the colonies as missionaries for the Anglican faith. Thomas Clapp became president in 1745, and while he attempted to return the college to Calvinist orthodoxy, did not close the library. Other students found Deist books in the library. Curriculum Yale College undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum with departmental majors and is organized into a social system of residential colleges. Yale was swept up by the great intellectual movements of the period—the Great Awakening and Enlightenment—due to the religious and scientific interests of presidents Thomas Clap and Ezra Stiles. They were instrumental in developing the scientific curriculum while dealing with wars, student tumults, graffiti, "irrelevance" of curricula, desperate need for endowment and disagreements with the Connecticut legislature. Serious American students of theology and divinity, particularly in New England, regarded Hebrew as a classical language, along with Greek and Latin, and essential for study of the Old Testament in the original. Reverend Stiles, president from 1778 to 1795, brought with him his interest in Hebrew as a vehicle for studying ancient Biblical texts in their original language, requiring all freshmen to study Hebrew (in contrast to Harvard, where only upperclassmen were required to study it) and is responsible for the Hebrew phrase אורים ותמים (Urim and Thummim) on the Yale seal. A 1746 graduate of Yale, Stiles came to the college with experience in education, having played an integral role in founding Brown University. Stiles' greatest challenge occurred in 1779 when British forces occupied New Haven and threatened to raze the college. However, Yale graduate Edmund Fanning, secretary to the British general in command of the occupation, intervened and the college was saved. In 1803, Fanning was granted an honorary degree LL.D.. Students As the only college in Connecticut from 1701 to 1823, Yale educated the sons of the elite. Punishable offenses included cardplaying, tavern-going, destruction of college property, and acts of disobedience. Harvard was distinctive for the stability and maturity of its tutor corps, while Yale had youth and zeal. The emphasis on classics gave rise to private student societies, open only by invitation, which arose as forums for discussions of scholarship, literature and politics. The first were debating societies: Crotonia in 1738, Linonia in 1753 and Brothers in Unity in 1768. Linonia and Brothers in Unity continue to exist; commemorations to them can be found with names given to campus structures, like Brothers in Unity Courtyard in Branford College. 19th century The Yale Report of 1828 was a dogmatic defense of the Latin and Greek curriculum against critics who wanted more courses in modern languages, math and science. Unlike higher education in Europe, there was no national curriculum for US colleges and universities. In the competition for students and financial support, college leaders strove to keep current with demands for innovation. At the same time, they realized a significant portion of students and prospective students demanded a classical background. The report meant the classics would not be abandoned. During this period, institutions experimented with changes in the curriculum, often resulting in a dual-track curriculum. In the decentralized environment of US higher education, balancing change with tradition was a common challenge. A group of professors at Yale and New Haven Congregationalist ministers articulated a conservative response to the changes brought by Victorian culture. They concentrated on developing a person possessed of religious values strong enough to sufficiently resist temptations from within, yet flexible enough to adjust to the 'isms' (professionalism, materialism, individualism, and consumerism) tempting them from without. William Graham Sumner, professor from 1872 to 1909, taught in the emerging disciplines of economics and sociology to overflowing classrooms. Sumner bested President Noah Porter, who disliked the social sciences and wanted Yale to lock into its traditions of classical education. Porter objected to Sumner's use of a textbook by Herbert Spencer that espoused agnostic materialism because it might harm students. Until 1887, the legal name of the university was "The President and Fellows of Yale College, in New Haven." In 1887, under an act passed by the Connecticut General Assembly, Yale was renamed "Yale University". Sports and debate The Revolutionary War soldier Nathan Hale (Yale 1773) was the archetype of the Yale ideal in the early 19th century: a manly yet aristocratic scholar, well-versed in knowledge and sports, and a patriot who "regretted" that he "had but one life to lose" for his country. Western painter Frederic Remington (Yale 1900) was an artist whose heroes gloried in the combat and tests of strength in the Wild West. The fictional, turn-of-the-20th-century Yale man Frank Merriwell embodied this same heroic ideal without racial prejudice, and his fictional successor Dink Stover in the novel Stover at Yale (1912) questioned the business mentality that had become prevalent at the school. Increasingly students turned to athletic stars as their heroes, especially since winning the big game became the goal of the student body, the alumni, and the team itself. Along with Harvard and Princeton, Yale students rejected British concepts about 'amateurism' and constructed athletic programs that were uniquely American. The Harvard–Yale football rivalry began in 1875. Between 1892, when Harvard and Yale met in one of the first intercollegiate debates, and in 1909 (year of the first Triangular Debate of Harvard/Yale/Princeton) the rhetoric, symbolism, and metaphors used in athletics were used to frame these debates. Debates were covered on front pages of college newspapers and emphasized in yearbooks, and team members received the equivalent of athletic letters for their jackets. There were rallies to send off teams to matches, but they never attained the broad appeal athletics enjoyed. One reason may be that debates do not have a clear winner, because scoring is subjective. With late 19th-century concerns about the impact of modern life on the body, athletics offered hope that neither the individual nor society was coming apart. In 1909–10, football faced a crisis resulting from the failure of the reforms of 1905–06, which sought to solve the problem of serious injuries. There was a mood of alarm and mistrust, and, while the crisis was developing, the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton developed a project to reform the sport and forestall possible radical changes forced by government. Presidents Arthur Hadley of Yale, A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, and Woodrow Wilson of Princeton worked to develop moderate reforms to reduce injuries. Their attempts, however, were reduced by rebellion against the rules committee and formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association. While the big three had attempted to operate independently of the majority, the changes pushed did reduce injuries. Expansion Starting with the addition of the Yale School of Medicine in 1810, the college expanded gradually, establishing the Yale Divinity School in 1822, Yale Law School in 1822, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1847, the now-defunct Sheffield Scientific School in 1847, and the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1869. In 1887, under the presidency of Timothy Dwight V, Yale College was renamed to Yale University, and the former name was applied only to the undergraduate college. The university would continue to expand into the 20th and 21st centuries, adding the Yale School of Music in 1894, the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in 1900, the Yale School of Public Health in 1915, the Yale School of Architecture in 1916, the Yale School of Nursing 1923, the Yale School of Drama in 1955, the Yale School of Management in 1976, and the Jackson School of Global Affairs in 2022. The Sheffield Scientific School would also reorganize its relationship with the university to teach only undergraduate courses. Expansion caused controversy about Yale's new roles. Noah Porter, a moral philosopher, was president from 1871 to 1886. During an age of expansion in higher education, Porter resisted the rise of the new research university, claiming an eager embrace of its ideals would corrupt undergraduate education. Historian George Levesque argues Porter was not a simple-minded reactionary, uncritically committed to tradition, but a principled and selective conservative. Levesque says he did not endorse everything old or reject everything new; rather, he sought to apply long-established ethical and pedagogical principles to a changing culture. Levesque concludes, noting he may have misunderstood some of the challenges, but he correctly anticipated the enduring tensions that have accompanied the emergence of the modern university. 20th century Medicine Milton Winternitz led the Yale School of Medicine as its dean from 1920 to 1935. Dedicated to the new scientific medicine established in Germany, he was equally fervent about "social medicine" and the study of humans in their environment. He established the "Yale System" of teaching, with few lectures and fewer exams, and strengthened the full-time faculty system; he created the graduate-level Yale School of Nursing and the psychiatry department and built new buildings. Progress toward his plans for an Institute of Human Relations, envisioned as a refuge where social scientists would collaborate with biological scientists in a holistic study of humankind, lasted only a few years before resentful antisemitic colleagues drove him to resign. Faculty Before World War II, most elite university faculties counted among their numbers few, if any, Jews, blacks, women, or other minorities; Yale was no exception. By 1980, this condition had been altered dramatically, as numerous members of those groups held faculty positions. Almost all members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—and some members of other faculties—teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. Women In 1793, Lucinda Foote passed the entrance exams for Yale College, but was rejected by the president on the basis of her gender. Women studied at Yale from 1892, in graduate-level programs at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The first seven women to earn PhDs received their degrees in 1894: Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Cornelia H. B. Rogers, Sara Bulkley Rogers, Margaretta Palmer, Mary Augusta Scott, Laura Johnson Wylie, and Charlotte Fitch Roberts. There is a portrait of them in Sterling Memorial Library, painted by Brenda Zlamany. In 1966, Yale began discussions with its sister school Vassar College about merging to foster coeducation at the undergraduate level. Vassar, then all-female and part of the Seven Sisters—elite higher education schools that served as sister institutions to the Ivy League when nearly all Ivy League institutions still only admitted men—tentatively accepted, but then declined the invitation. Both schools introduced coeducation independently in 1969. Amy Solomon was the first woman to register as a Yale undergraduate; she was the first woman at Yale to join an undergraduate society, St. Anthony Hall. The undergraduate class of 1973 was the first to have women starting from freshman year; all undergraduate women were housed in Vanderbilt Hall. A decade into co-education, student assault and harassment by faculty became the impetus for the trailblazing lawsuit Alexander v. Yale. In the 1970s, a group of students and a faculty member sued Yale for its failure to curtail sexual harassment, especially by male faculty. The case was partly built from a 1977 report authored by plaintiff Ann Olivarius, "A report to the Yale Corporation from the Yale Undergraduate Women's Caucus." This case was the first to use Title IX to argue and establish that sexual harassment of female students can be considered illegal sex discrimination. The plaintiffs were Olivarius, Ronni Alexander, Margery Reifler, Pamela Price, and Lisa E. Stone. They were joined by Yale classics professor John "Jack" J. Winkler. The lawsuit, brought partly by Catharine MacKinnon, alleged rape, fondling, and offers of higher grades for sex by faculty, including Keith Brion, professor of flute and director of bands, political science professor Raymond Duvall, English professor Michael Cooke, and coach of the field hockey team, Richard Kentwell. While unsuccessful in the courts, the legal reasoning changed the landscape of sex discrimination law and resulted in the establishment of Yale's Grievance Board and Women's Center. In 2011 a Title IX complaint was filed against Yale by students and graduates, including editors of Yale's feminist magazine Broad Recognition, alleging the university had a hostile sexual climate. In response, the university formed a Title IX steering committee to address complaints of sexual misconduct. Afterwards, universities and colleges throughout the US also established sexual harassment grievance procedures. Class Yale instituted policies in the early 20th century designed to maintain the proportion of white Protestants from notable families in the student body (see numerus clausus) and eliminated such preferences, beginning with the class of 1970. 21st century In 2006, Yale and Peking University (PKU) established a Joint Undergraduate Program in Beijing, an exchange program allowing Yale students to spend a semester living and studying with PKU honor students. In July 2012, the Yale University-PKU Program ended due to weak participation. In 2007 outgoing Yale President Rick Levin characterized Yale's institutional priorities: "First, among the nation's finest research universities, Yale is distinctively committed to excellence in undergraduate education. Second, in our graduate and professional schools, as well as in Yale College, we are committed to the education of leaders." In 2009, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair picked Yale as one location – the others being Britain's Durham University and Universiti Teknologi Mara – for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation's United States Faith and Globalization Initiative. As of 2009, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and teaches an undergraduate seminar, "Debating Globalization". As of 2009, former presidential candidate and DNC chair Howard Dean teaches a residential college seminar, "Understanding Politics and Politicians". Also in 2009, an alliance was formed among Yale, University College London, and both schools' affiliated hospital complexes to conduct research focused on the direct improvement of patient care—a field known as translational medicine. President Richard Levin noted that Yale has hundreds of other partnerships across the world, but "no existing collaboration matches the scale of the new partnership with UCL". In August 2013, a new partnership with the National University of Singapore led to the opening of Yale-NUS College in Singapore, a joint effort to create a new liberal arts college in Asia featuring a curriculum including Western and Asian traditions. In 2017, having been suggested for decades, Yale University renamed Calhoun College, named for slave owner, anti-abolitionist, and white supremacist Vice President John C. Calhoun. It is now Hopper College, after Grace Hopper. In 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the #CancelYale tag was used on social media to demand that Elihu Yale's name be removed from Yale University. Much of the support originated from right-wing pundits such as Mike Cernovich and Ann Coulter, who intended to satirize what they perceived as the excesses of cancel culture. Yale spent most of his professional career in the employ of the East India Company (EIC), serving as the governor of the Presidency of Fort St. George in modern-day Chennai. The EIC, including Yale himself, was involved in the Indian Ocean slave trade, though the extent of Yale's involvement in slavery remains debated. His singularly large donation led critics to argue Yale University relied on money derived from slavery for its first scholarships and endowments. In 2020, the US Justice Department sued Yale for alleged discrimination against Asian and white candidates, through affirmative action admission policies. In 2021, under the new Biden administration, the Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit. The group, Students for Fair Admissions, later won a similar lawsuit against Harvard. In April 2024, Yale students joined other campuses across the United States in protests against the Israel–Hamas war. The student protestors demanded that Yale University divest from companies with ties to Israel's war on Gaza. Protests continued during the summer and in the new academic year starting September 2024. Alumni in politics The Boston Globe wrote in 2002 that "if there's one school that can lay claim to educating the nation's top national leaders over the past three decades, it's Yale". Yale alumni were represented on the Democratic or Republican ticket in every U.S. presidential election between 1972 and 2004. Yale-educated presidents since the end of the Vietnam War include Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and major-party nominees include Hillary Clinton (2016), John Kerry (2004), Joseph Lieberman (vice president, 2000), and Sargent Shriver (vice president, 1972). Other alumni who have made serious bids for the presidency include Amy Klobuchar (2020), Tom Steyer (2020), Ben Carson (2016), Howard Dean (2004), Gary Hart (1984 and 1988), Paul Tsongas (1992), Pat Robertson (1988) and Jerry Brown (1976, 1980, 1992). Several explanations have been offered for Yale's representation since the end of the Vietnam War. Sources note the spirit of campus activism that has existed at Yale since the 1960s, and the intellectual influence of Reverend William Sloane Coffin on future candidates. Yale President Levin attributes the run to Yale's focus on creating "a laboratory for future leaders", an institutional priority that began during the tenure of Yale Presidents Alfred Whitney Griswold and Kingman Brewster. Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College and now president of Duke University, stated: "We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions, and there is a very strong tradition of volunteerism at Yale." Yale historian Gaddis Smith notes "an ethos of organized activity" at Yale during the 20th century that led Kerry to lead the Yale Political Union's Liberal Party, George Pataki the Conservative Party, and Lieberman to manage the Yale Daily News. Camille Paglia points to a history of networking and elitism: "It has to do with a web of friendships and affiliations built up in school." CNN suggests that George W. Bush benefited from preferential admissions policies for the "son and grandson of alumni", and for a "member of a politically influential family". Elisabeth Bumiller and James Fallows credit the culture of community that exists between students, faculty, and administration, which downplays self-interest and reinforces commitment to others. During the 1988 presidential election, George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) derided Michael Dukakis for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique". When challenged on the distinction between Dukakis's Harvard connection and his Yale background, he said that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it" and said Yale did not share Harvard's reputation for "liberalism and elitism". In 2004 Howard Dean stated, "In some ways, I consider myself separate from the other three (Yale) candidates of 2004. Yale changed so much between the class of '68 and the class of '71. My class was the first class to have women in it; it was the first class to have a significant effort to recruit African Americans. It was an extraordinary time, and in that span of time is the change of an entire generation". Administration and organization Leadership The President and Fellows of Yale College, also known as the Yale Corporation, or board of trustees, is the governing body of the university and consists of thirteen standing committees with separate responsibilities outlined in the by-laws. The corporation has 19 members: three ex officio members, ten successor trustees, and six elected alumni fellows. The university has three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the twelve professional schools. Yale's former president Richard C. Levin was, at the time, one of the highest paid university presidents in the United States with a 2008 salary of $1.5 million. Yale's succeeding president Peter Salovey ranks 40th with a 2020 salary of $1.16 million. The Yale Provost's Office and similar executive positions have launched several women into prominent university executive positions. In 1977, Provost Hanna Holborn Gray was appointed interim president of Yale and later went on to become president of the University of Chicago, being the first woman to hold either position at each respective school. In 1994, Provost Judith Rodin became the first permanent female president of an Ivy League institution at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002, Provost Alison Richard became the vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In 2003, the dean of the Divinity School, Rebecca Chopp, was appointed president of Colgate University and later went on to serve as the president of Swarthmore College in 2009, and then the first female chancellor of the University of Denver in 2014. In 2004, Provost Dr. Susan Hockfield became the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004, Dean of the Nursing school, Catherine Gilliss, was appointed the dean of Duke University's School of Nursing and vice chancellor for nursing affairs. In 2007, Deputy Provost H. Kim Bottomly was named president of Wellesley College. Similar examples for men who have served in Yale leadership positions can also be found. In 2004, Dean of Yale College Richard H. Brodhead was appointed as the president of Duke University. In 2008, Provost Andrew Hamilton was confirmed to be the vice chancellor of the University of Oxford. Staff and labor unions Yale University staff are represented by several different unions. Clerical and technical workers are represented by Local 34, and service and maintenance workers are represented by Local 35, both of the same union affiliate UNITE HERE. Unlike similar institutions, Yale has consistently refused to recognize its graduate student union, Local 33 (another affiliate of UNITE HERE), citing claims that the union's elections were undemocratic and how graduate students are not employees; the move to not recognize the union has been criticized by the American Federation of Teachers. In addition, officers of the Yale University Police Department are represented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association, which affiliated in 2005 with the Connecticut Organization for Public Safety Employees. Yale security officers joined the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America in late 2010, even though the Yale administration contested the election. In October 2014, after deliberation, Yale security decided to form a new union, the Yale University Security Officers Association, which has since represented the campus security officers. Yale has a history of difficult and prolonged labor negotiations, often culminating in strikes. There have been at least eight strikes since 1968, and The New York Times wrote that Yale has a reputation as having the worst record of labor tension of any university in the U.S. Moreover, Yale has been accused by the AFL–CIO of failing to treat workers with respect, as well as not renewing contracts with professors over involvement in campus labor issues. Yale has responded to strikes with claims over mediocre union participation and the benefits of their contracts. Campus Yale's central campus in downtown New Haven covers 260 acres (1.1 km2) and comprises its main, historic campus and a medical campus adjacent to the Yale–New Haven Hospital. In western New Haven, the university holds 500 acres (2.0 km2) of athletic facilities, including the Yale Golf Course. In 2008, Yale purchased the 17-building, 136-acre (0.55 km2) former Bayer HealthCare complex in West Haven, Connecticut, the buildings of which are now used as laboratory and research space. Yale also owns seven forests in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire—the largest of which is the 7,840-acre (31.7 km2) Yale-Myers Forest in Connecticut's Quiet Corner—and nature preserves including Horse Island. Yale is noted for its largely Collegiate Gothic campus as well as several iconic modern buildings commonly discussed in architectural history survey courses: Louis Kahn's Yale Art Gallery and Center for British Art, Eero Saarinen's Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, and Paul Rudolph's Art & Architecture Building. Yale also owns and has restored many noteworthy 19th-century mansions along Hillhouse Avenue, which was considered the most beautiful street in America by Charles Dickens when he visited the United States in the 1840s. In 2011, Travel + Leisure listed the Yale campus as one of the most beautiful in the United States. Many of Yale's buildings were constructed in the Collegiate Gothic architecture style from 1917 to 1931, financed largely by Edward S. Harkness, including the Yale Drama School. Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings portray contemporary college personalities, such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorative friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes, like a policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect, James Gamble Rogers, faux-aged these buildings by splashing the walls with acid, deliberately breaking their leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the Middle Ages, and creating niches for decorative statuary but leaving them empty to simulate loss or theft over the ages. In fact, the buildings merely simulate Middle Ages architecture, for though they appear to be constructed of solid stone blocks in the authentic manner, most actually have steel framing as was commonly used in 1930. One exception is Harkness Tower, 216 feet (66 m) tall, which was originally a free-standing stone structure. It was reinforced in 1964 to allow the installation of the Yale Memorial Carillon. Other examples of the Gothic style are on the Old Campus by architects like Henry Austin, Charles C. Haight and Russell Sturgis. Several are associated with members of the Vanderbilt family, including Vanderbilt Hall, Phelps Hall, St. Anthony Hall (a commission for member Frederick William Vanderbilt), the Mason, Sloane and Osborn laboratories, dormitories for the Sheffield Scientific School (the engineering and sciences school at Yale until 1956) and elements of Silliman College, the largest residential college. The oldest building on campus, Connecticut Hall (built in 1750), is in the Georgian style. Georgian-style buildings erected from 1929 to 1933 include Timothy Dwight College, Pierson College, and Davenport College, except the latter's east, York Street façade, which was constructed in the Gothic style to coordinate with adjacent structures. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is one of the largest buildings in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. The library includes a six-story above-ground tower of book stacks, filled with 180,000 volumes, that is surrounded by large translucent Vermont marble panels and a steel and granite truss. The panels act as windows and subdue direct sunlight while also diffusing the light in warm hues throughout the interior. Near the library is a sunken courtyard with sculptures by Isamu Noguchi that are said to represent time (the pyramid), the sun (the circle), and chance (the cube). The library is located near the center of the university in Hewitt Quadrangle, which is now more commonly referred to as "Beinecke Plaza". Alumnus Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Washington Dulles International Airport main terminal, Bell Labs Holmdel Complex and the CBS Building in Manhattan, designed Ingalls Rink, dedicated in 1959, as well as the residential colleges Ezra Stiles and Morse. These latter were modeled after the medieval Italian hill town of San Gimignano – a prototype chosen for the town's pedestrian-friendly milieu and fortress-like stone towers. These tower forms at Yale act in counterpoint to the college's many Gothic spires and Georgian cupolas. The athletic field complex is partially in New Haven, and partially in West Haven. Notable nonresidential campus buildings Notable nonresidential campus buildings and landmarks include Battell Chapel, Beinecke Rare Book Library, Harkness Tower, Humanities Quadrangle, Ingalls Rink, Kline Biology Tower, Osborne Memorial Laboratories, Payne Whitney Gymnasium, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Sterling Hall of Medicine, Sterling Law Buildings, Sterling Memorial Library, Woolsey Hall, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Art & Architecture Building, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. Yale's secret society buildings (some of which are called "tombs") were built to be private yet unmistakable. A diversity of architectural styles is represented: Berzelius, Donn Barber in an austere cube with classical detailing (erected in 1908 or 1910); Book and Snake, Louis R. Metcalfe in a Greek Ionic style (erected in 1901); Elihu, architect unknown but built in a Colonial style (constructed on an early 17th-century foundation although the building is from the 18th century); Mace and Chain, in a late colonial, early Victorian style (built in 1823). (Interior moulding is said to have belonged to Benedict Arnold); Manuscript Society, King-lui Wu with Dan Kiley responsible for landscaping and Josef Albers for the brickwork intaglio mural. Building constructed in a mid-century modern style; Scroll and Key, Richard Morris Hunt in a Moorish- or Islamic-inspired Beaux-Arts style (erected 1869–70); Skull and Bones, possibly Alexander Jackson Davis or Henry Austin in an Egypto-Doric style utilizing Brownstone (in 1856 the first wing was completed, in 1903 the second wing, 1911 the Neo-Gothic towers in rear garden were completed); St. Elmo, (former tomb) Kenneth M. Murchison, 1912, designs inspired by Elizabethan manor. Current location, brick colonial; and Wolf's Head, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, erected 1923–1924, Collegiate Gothic. Sustainability Yale's Office of Sustainability develops and implements sustainability practices at Yale. Yale is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. As part of this commitment, the university allocates renewable energy credits to offset some of the energy used by residential colleges. Eleven campus buildings are candidates for LEED design and certification. Yale Sustainable Food Project initiated the introduction of local, organic vegetables, fruits, and beef to all residential college dining halls. Yale was listed as a Campus Sustainability Leader on the Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card 2008, and received a "B+" grade overall. Yale is a member of the Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium, through which it has committed to best-practice sharing and the ongoing exchange of campus sustainability solutions along with other member institutions. Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven Marsh Botanical Garden Yale Sustainable Food Program Farm Relationship with New Haven Yale is the largest taxpayer and employer in the City of New Haven, and has often buoyed the city's economy and communities. Yale, however, has consistently opposed paying a tax on its academic property. Yale's Art Galleries, along with many other university resources, are free and openly accessible. Yale also funds the New Haven Promise program, paying full tuition for eligible students from New Haven public schools. Town–gown relations Yale has a complicated relationship with its home city; for example, thousands of students volunteer every year in myriad community organizations, but city officials, who decry Yale's exemption from local property taxes, have long pressed the university to do more to help. Under President Levin, Yale has financially supported many of New Haven's efforts to reinvigorate the city. Evidence suggests that the town and gown relationships are mutually beneficial. Still, the economic power of the university increased dramatically with its financial success amid a decline in the local economy. Campus safety Several campus safety strategies have been pioneered at Yale. The first campus police force was founded at Yale in 1894, when the university contracted city police officers to exclusively cover the campus. Later hired by the university, the officers were originally brought in to quell unrest between students and city residents and curb destructive student behavior. In addition to the Yale Police Department, a variety of safety services are available including blue phones, a safety escort, and 24-hour shuttle service. In the 1970s and 1980s, poverty and violent crime rose in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts. Between 1990 and 2006, New Haven's crime rate fell by half, helped by a community policing strategy by the New Haven Police and Yale's campus became the safest among peer schools. In 2004, the national non-profit watchdog group Security on Campus filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, accusing Yale of under-reporting rape and sexual assaults. In April 2021, Yale announced that it will require students to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of being on campus during the fall 2021 term. Academics Admissions Undergraduate admission to Yale College is considered "most selective" by U.S. News. In 2022, Yale accepted 2,234 students to the Class of 2026 out of 50,015 applicants, for an acceptance rate of 4.46%. 98% of students graduate within six years. Through its program of need-based financial aid, Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants, and the university is need-blind for both domestic and international applicants. Most financial aid is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be paid back to the university, and the average need-based aid grant for the Class of 2017 was $46,395. 15% of Yale College students are expected to have no parental contribution, and about 50% receive some form of financial aid. About 16% of the Class of 2013 had some form of student loan debt at graduation, with an average debt of $13,000 among borrowers. For 2019, Yale ranked second in enrollment of recipients of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (140 scholars). Half of all Yale undergraduates are women, more than 39% are ethnic minority U.S. citizens (19% are underrepresented minorities), and 10.5% are international students. 55% attended public schools and 45% attended private, religious, or international schools, and 97% of students were in the top 10% of their high school class. Every year, Yale College also admits a small group of non-traditional students through the Eli Whitney Students Program. Collections Yale University Library, which holds over 15 million volumes, is the third-largest university collection in the United States. The main library, Sterling Memorial Library, contains about 4 million volumes, and other holdings are dispersed at subject and location libraries. Rare books are found in several Yale collections. The Beinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library includes important historical medical texts, including an impressive collection of rare books, as well as historical medical instruments. The Lewis Walpole Library contains the largest collection of 18th‑century British literary works. The Elizabethan Club, technically a private organization, makes its Elizabethan folios and first editions available to qualified researchers through Yale. Yale's museum collections are also of international stature. The Yale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum, contains more than 200,000 works, including Old Masters and important collections of modern art, in the Swartwout and Kahn buildings. The latter, Louis Kahn's first large-scale American work (1953), was renovated and reopened in December 2006. The Yale Center for British Art, the largest collection of British art outside of the UK, grew from a gift of Paul Mellon and is housed in another Kahn-designed building. The Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven is used by school children and contains research collections in anthropology, archaeology, and the natural environment. The Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, affiliated with the Yale School of Music, is perhaps the least-known of Yale's collections because its hours of opening are restricted. The museums once housed the artifacts brought to the United States from Peru by Yale history professor Hiram Bingham in his Yale-financed expedition to Machu Picchu in 1912 – when the removal of such artifacts was legal. The artifacts were restored to Peru in 2012. Rankings The U.S. News & World Report ranked Yale third among U.S. national universities for 2016, as it had for each of the previous sixteen years. Yale University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. Internationally, Yale was ranked 11th in the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, tenth in the 2016–17 Nature Index for quality of scientific research output, and tenth in the 2016 CWUR World University Rankings. The university was also ranked sixth in the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Rankings and eighth in the Academic World Reputation Rankings. In 2019, it ranked 27th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. Faculty, research, and intellectual traditions Yale is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The National Science Foundation ranked Yale 15th among American universities for research and development expenditures in 2021 with $1.16 billion. Yale's current faculty include 67 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 55 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 187 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of doctoral degree recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League. It also is a top 10 (ranked seventh) baccalaureate source (after normalization for the number of graduates) of some of the most notable scientists (Nobel, Fields, Turing prizes, or membership in National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, or National Academy of Medicine). Yale's English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics, Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American deconstruction. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the department of comparative literature from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called "Yale School". These included Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and Harold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians C. Vann Woodward and David Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale's Music School and department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The Journal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957; Allen Forte and David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars. Since the late 1960s, Yale produces social sciences and policy research through its Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS). In addition to eminent faculty members, Yale research relies heavily on the presence of roughly 1200 Postdocs from various national and international origin working in the multiple laboratories in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professional schools of the university. The university progressively recognized this working force with the recent creation of the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs and the Yale Postdoctoral Association. Campus life Yale is a research university, with the majority of its students in the graduate and professional schools. Undergraduates, or Yale College students, come from a variety of ethnic, national, socioeconomic, and personal backgrounds. Of the 2010–2011 freshman class, 10% are non‑U.S. citizens, while 54% went to public high schools. The median family income of Yale students is $192,600, with 57% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 16% from the bottom 60%. Residential colleges Yale's residential college system was established in 1933 by Edward S. Harkness, who admired the social intimacy of Oxford and Cambridge and donated significant funds to found similar colleges at Yale and Harvard. Though Yale's colleges resemble their English precursors organizationally and architecturally, they are dependent entities of Yale College and have limited autonomy. The colleges are led by a head and an academic dean, who reside in the college, and university faculty and affiliates constitute each college's fellowship. Colleges offer their own seminars, social events, and speaking engagements known as "Master's Teas", but do not contain programs of study or academic departments. All other undergraduate courses are taught by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are open to members of any college. All undergraduates are members of a college, to which they are assigned before their freshman year, and 85 percent live in the college quadrangle or a college-affiliated dormitory. While the majority of upperclassman live in the colleges, most on-campus freshmen live on the Old Campus, the university's oldest precinct. While Harkness' original colleges were Georgian Revival or Collegiate Gothic in style, two colleges constructed in the 1960s, Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, have modernist designs. All twelve college quadrangles are organized around a courtyard, and each has a dining hall, courtyard, library, common room, and a range of student facilities. The twelve colleges are named for important alumni or significant places in university history. In 2017, the university opened two new colleges near Science Hill. Calhoun College Since the 1960s, John C. Calhoun's white supremacist beliefs and pro-slavery leadership had prompted calls to rename the college or remove its tributes to Calhoun. The racially motivated church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, led to renewed calls in the summer of 2015 for Calhoun College, one of 12 residential colleges at the time, to be renamed. In July 2015 students signed a petition calling for the name change. They argued in the petition that—while Calhoun was respected in the 19th century as an "extraordinary American statesman"—he was "one of the most prolific defenders of slavery and white supremacy" in the history of the United States. In August 2015, Yale President Peter Salovey addressed the Freshman Class of 2019 in which he responded to the racial tensions but explained why the college would not be renamed. He described Calhoun as "a notable political theorist, a vice president to two different U.S. presidents, a secretary of war and of state, and a congressman and senator representing South Carolina". He acknowledged that Calhoun also "believed that the highest forms of civilization depend on involuntary servitude. Not only that, but he also believed that the races he thought to be inferior, black people in particular, ought to be subjected to it for the sake of their own best interests." Student activism about this issue increased in the fall of 2015, and included further protests sparked by controversy surrounding an administrator's comments on the potential positive and negative implications of students who wear Halloween costumes that are culturally sensitive. Campus-wide discussions expanded to include critical discussion of the experiences of women of color on campus, and the realities of racism in undergraduate life. The protests were sensationalized by the media and led to the labelling of some students as being members of Generation Snowflake. In April 2016, Salovey announced that "despite decades of vigorous alumni and student protests", Calhoun's name will remain on the Yale residential college explaining that it is preferable for Yale students to live in Calhoun's "shadow" so they will be "better prepared to rise to the challenges of the present and the future". He claimed that if they removed Calhoun's name, it would "obscure" his "legacy of slavery rather than addressing it". "Yale is part of that history" and "We cannot erase American history, but we can confront it, teach it and learn from it." One change that will be issued is the title of "master" for faculty members who serve as residential college leaders will be renamed to "head of college" due to its connotation of slavery. Despite this apparently conclusive reasoning, Salovey announced that Calhoun College would be renamed for groundbreaking computer scientist Grace Hopper in February 2017. This renaming decision received a range of responses from Yale students and alumni. In his 2019 book Assault on American Excellence, former Dean of Yale Law School Anthony T. Kronman criticized the title and name changes and the lack of support from Salovey for the Christakises, who were targeted by the student activists. Other members of the university community disagreed with Kronman's positions. Student organizations In 2024, Yale had 526 registered undergraduate student organizations, plus hundreds of others for graduate students. The university hosts a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. The Yale Literary Magazine, founded in February 1836, is the oldest student literary magazine in the United States. Established in 1872, The Yale Record is the world's oldest college humor magazine. Newspapers include the Yale Daily News, which was first published in 1878, and the weekly Yale Herald, which was first published in 1986. The Yale Journal of Medicine & Law is a biannual magazine that explores the intersection of law and medicine. Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 70 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services. The Yale Dramatic Association and Bulldog Productions cater to the theater and film communities, respectively. In addition, the Yale Drama Coalition serves to coordinate between and provide resources for the various Sudler Fund sponsored theater productions which run each weekend. WYBC Yale Radio is the campus's radio station, owned and operated by students. While students used to broadcast on AM and FM frequencies, they now have an Internet-only stream. The Yale College Council (YCC) serves as the campus's undergraduate student government. All registered student organizations are regulated and funded by a subsidiary organization of the YCC, known as the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee (UOFC). The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) serves as Yale's graduate and professional student government. The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society founded in 1934 to host student discussions on a wide variety of topics. It is advised by alumni political leaders such as John Kerry and George Pataki. The Yale International Relations Association (YIRA) functions as the umbrella organization for the university's top-ranked Model UN team. YIRA also has a Europe-based offshoot, Yale Model Government Europe, other Model UN conferences such as YMUN, YMUN Korea, YMUN Taiwan and Yale Model African Union (YMAU), and educational programs such as the Yale Review of International Studies (YRIS), Yale International Relations Leadership Institute, and Hemispheres. The campus includes several fraternities and sororities. The campus features at least 18 a cappella groups, the most famous of which is The Whiffenpoofs, which from its founding in 1909 until 2018 was made up solely of senior men. The Elizabethan Club, a social club, has a membership of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff with literary or artistic interests. Membership is by invitation. Members and their guests may enter the "Lizzie's" premises for conversation and tea. The club owns first editions of a Shakespeare Folio, several Shakespeare Quartos, and a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, among other important literary texts. Secret societies Yale's secret societies include Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf's Head, Book and Snake, Elihu, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Manuscript, Brothers in Unity, Linonia, St. Anthony Hall, Shabtai, Myth and Sword, Daughters of Sovereign Government (DSG), Mace and Chain, ISO, Spade and Grave, and Sage and Chalice, among others. The two oldest existing honor societies are the Aurelian (1910) and the Torch Honor Society (1916). These are akin to Harvard finals clubs, Princeton eating clubs, and senior societies at University of Pennsylvania. Traditions Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "bright college years", though in recent history the pipes have been replaced with "bubble pipes". ("Bright College Years", the university's alma mater, was penned in 1881 by Henry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune of Die Wacht am Rhein.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus; however, actual students rarely do so. In the second half of the 20th century Bladderball, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009, 2011, and 2014. Athletics Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the Ivy League Conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, and the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Yale athletic teams compete intercollegiately at the NCAA Division I level. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships. Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the Yale Bowl (the nation's first natural "bowl" stadium, and prototype for such stadiums as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl), located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world. In 1970, the NCAA banned Yale from participating in all NCAA sports for two years, in reaction to Yale – against the wishes of the NCAA – playing its Jewish center Jack Langer in college games after Langer had played for Team United States at the 1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel with the approval of Yale President Kingman Brewster. The decision impacted 300 Yale students, every Yale student on its sports teams, over the next two years. In 2016, the men's basketball team won the Ivy League Championship title for the first time in 54 years, earning a spot in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. In the first round of the tournament, the Bulldogs beat the Baylor Bears 79–75 in the school's first-ever tournament win. In May 2018, the men's lacrosse team defeated the Duke Blue Devils to claim their first-ever NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship, and were the first Ivy League school to win the title since the Princeton Tigers in 2001. Yale crew is the oldest collegiate athletic team in America, and won Olympic Games Gold Medal for men's eights in 1924 and 1956. The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world. October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. The Gilder Boathouse is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her father Richard Gilder '54, who gave $4 million towards the $7.5 million project. Yale also maintains the Gales Ferry site where the heavyweight men's team trains for the Yale-Harvard Boat Race. In 1896, Yale and Johns Hopkins played the first known ice hockey game in the United States. Since 2006, the school's ice hockey clubs have played a commemorative game. Yale students claim to have invented Frisbee, by tossing empty Frisbie Pie Company tins. Yale athletics are supported by the Yale Precision Marching Band. "Precision" is used here ironically; the band is a scatter-style band that runs wildly between formations rather than actually marching. The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter. Yale intramural sports are also a significant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, fostering a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into fall, winter, and spring seasons, each of which includes about 10 different sports. About half the sports are coeducational. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup. Song Notable among the songs commonly played and sung at events such as commencement, convocation, alumni gatherings, and athletic games is the alma mater, "Bright College Years". Despite its popularity, "Boola Boola" is not the official fight song, albeit being the origin of the university's unofficial motto. The official Yale fight song, "Bulldog" was written by Cole Porter during his undergraduate days and is sung after touchdowns during a football game. Additionally, two other songs, "Down the Field" by C.W. O'Conner, and "Bingo Eli Yale", also by Cole Porter, are still sung at football games. According to College Fight Songs: An Annotated Anthology published in 1998, "Down the Field" ranks as the fourth-greatest fight song of all time. Mascot The school mascot is "Handsome Dan", the Yale bulldog, and the Yale fight song contains the refrain, "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow." The school color, since 1894, is Yale Blue. Yale's Handsome Dan is believed to be the first college mascot in America, having been established in 1889. Mental health Yale has faced significant criticism for its handling of student mental health on campus. Suicidal and depressed students say that Yale forced them to medically withdraw rather than provide them with academic accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and in 2018 the Ruderman Family Foundation ranked Yale as having the worst mental health policies in the Ivy League. Students at Yale say that the university's policies force them to hide their depression and avoid seeking help, for fear of being forced to leave. One prominent case was the suicide of Luchang Wang in 2015, who died by suicide after making a Facebook post saying that she needed time to deal with her mental health issues, but could not deal with being forced to medically withdraw for an entire year with an uncertain chance of being readmitted. Wang had previously withdrawn from school due to mental health issues, and was afraid of being forced to withdraw again, as a second readmission attempt would be considerably more difficult for her. A friend of Wang said that she routinely lied to her university therapist to avoid being kicked out, and another student said that many at Yale lie to their counselors as "there's no clear standard established that says exactly what students will get involuntarily hospitalized or withdrawn for". In response, the university convened a commission to evaluate their readmission policies after a mental health withdrawal, renaming the process to "reinstatement" as well as eliminating the $50 reapplication fee. For students that do seek help, waitlists for therapy can be months long, with individual counselling sessions only 30 minutes in length. In 2022, after a Washington Post article about their medical withdrawal policies, the school increased the number of mental health clinicians on campus from 51 to 60 as well as promised further changes. In 2023, after a lawsuit was filed against the school for what the plaintiffs described as discrimination, the university changed the name of a "medical withdrawal" to a "medical leave of absence" saying that the "leave of absence" terminology would allow students to remain on Yale's insurance while away from the school. The new policy also allowed for students on a leave of absence to participate in extracurricular clubs and visit campus, something a student on medical withdrawal was banned from doing. A representative of Yale also said that the criticism of their policies "misrepresents our efforts and unwavering commitment to supporting our students, whose well-being and success are our primary focus" and that "the mental health of our students is a very, very high priority". After the death of undergraduate student Rachael Shaw Rosenbaum by suicide, an organization called Elis for Rachael was formed, advocating for mental health-related reforms. The group has sued Yale, demanding changes. Notable people Benefactors Yale has had many financial supporters, but some stand out by the magnitude or timeliness of their contributions. Among those who have made large donations commemorated at the university are: Elihu Yale, Jeremiah Dummer, the Vanderbilt family, the Harkness family (Edward, Anna, and William), the Beinecke family (Edwin, Frederick, and Walter), John William Sterling, Payne Whitney, Joseph Earl Sheffield, Paul Mellon, Charles B. G. Murphy, Joseph Tsai, William K. Lanman, and Stephen Schwarzman. The Yale Class of 1954, led by Richard Gilder, donated $70 million in commemoration of their 50th reunion. Charles B. Johnson, a 1954 graduate of Yale College, pledged a $250 million gift in 2013 to support the construction of two new residential colleges. The colleges have been named respectively in honor of Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin. A $100 million contribution by Stephen Adams enabled the Yale School of Music to become tuition-free and the Adams Center for Musical Arts to be built, while a $150 million contribution by David Geffen enabled the Yale School of Drama (renamed the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale) to become tuition-free as well. Notable alumni Yale has produced many distinguished alumni in various fields, from the public to private sector. According to 2020 data, around 71% of undergraduates join the workforce, while 17% attend graduate or professional schools. Yale graduates have been recipients of 263 Rhodes Scholarships, 123 Marshall Scholarships, 67 Truman Scholarships, 21 Churchill Scholarships, and 9 Mitchell Scholarships. The university is the 2nd largest producer of Fulbright Scholars, with 1,244 in its history and 89 MacArthur Fellows. The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs ranked Yale fifth among research institutions producing the most 2020–2021 Fulbright Scholars. 31 living billionaires are alumni. One of the most popular undergraduate majors is political science, with many going on to serve in government and politics. Former presidents who attended for undergrad include William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush while former presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton attended Yale Law School. Former vice-president and influential antebellum era politician John C. Calhoun also graduated from Yale. Former world leaders include Italian prime minister Mario Monti, Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller, South Korean prime minister Lee Hong-koo, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, German president Karl Carstens, Philippine president José Paciano Laurel, Latvian president Valdis Zatlers, Taiwanese premier Jiang Yi-huah, and Malawian president Peter Mutharika, among others. Prominent royals who graduated are Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, and Olympia Bonaparte, Princess Napoléon. Alumni have had considerable presence in U.S. government in all three branches. On the U.S. Supreme Court, 19 justices have been alumni, including current Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. Alumni have been U.S. Senators, including current senators Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, and JD Vance. Current and former cabinet members include Secretaries of State John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Cyrus Vance, and Dean Acheson; U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Robert Rubin, Nicholas F. Brady, Steven Mnuchin, and Janet Yellen; U.S. Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach, Edwin Meese, John Ashcroft, and Edward H. Levi; and many others. Peace Corps founder and American diplomat Sargent Shriver and public official and urban planner Robert Moses are Yale alumni. Yale has produced numerous award-winning authors and influential writers, like Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Sinclair Lewis and Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Vincent Benét, Thornton Wilder, Doug Wright, and David McCullough. Academy Award winning actors, actresses, and directors include Jodie Foster, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Lupita Nyong'o, Oliver Stone, and Frances McDormand. Alumni from Yale have also made notable contributions to both music and the arts. Leading American composer from the 20th century Charles Ives, Broadway composer Cole Porter, Grammy award winner David Lang, multi-Tony Award winner Composer and Musicologist Maury Yeston, and award-winning jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer all hail from Yale. Hugo Boss Prize winner Matthew Barney, famed American sculptor Richard Serra, President Barack Obama presidential portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, MacArthur Fellows and contemporary artists Tschabalala Self, Titus Kaphar, Richard Whitten, and Sarah Sze, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and National Medal of Arts photorealist painter Chuck Close all graduated from Yale. Additional alumni include architect and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Maya Lin, Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, and Gateway Arch designer Eero Saarinen. Journalists and pundits include Dick Cavett, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, William F. Buckley Jr., Blake Hounshell, and Fareed Zakaria. In business, Yale has had numerous alumni and former students go on to become founders of influential business, like William Boeing (Boeing, United Airlines), Briton Hadden and Henry Luce (Time Magazine), Stephen A. Schwarzman (Blackstone Group), Frederick W. Smith (FedEx), Juan Trippe (Pan Am), Harold Stanley (Morgan Stanley), Bing Gordon (Electronic Arts), and Ben Silbermann (Pinterest). Other business people from Yale include former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings Edward Lampert, former Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes, former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi, sports agent Donald Dell, and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton, Alumni distinguished in academia include literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates, economists Irving Fischer, Mahbub ul Haq, and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Ernest Lawrence and Murray Gell-Mann; Fields Medalist John G. Thompson; Human Genome Project leader and National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins; brain surgery pioneer Harvey Cushing; pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper; influential mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs; National Women's Hall of Fame inductee and biochemist Florence B. Seibert; Turing Award recipient Ron Rivest; inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Eli Whitney; Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate John B. Goodenough; lexicographer Noah Webster; and theologians Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold Niebuhr. In the sporting arena, alumni include baseball players Ron Darling and Craig Breslow who in the major leagues played with fellow Yale alum Ryan Lavarnway and baseball executives Theo Epstein and George Weiss; football players Calvin Hill, Gary Fenick, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and "the Father of American Football" Walter Camp; ice hockey players Chris Higgins and Olympian Helen Resor; Olympic figure skating champions Sarah Hughes and Nathan Chen; nine-time U.S. Squash men's champion Julian Illingworth; Olympic swimmer Don Schollander; Olympic rowers Josh West and Rusty Wailes; Olympic sailor Stuart McNay; Olympic runner Frank Shorter; and others. Notable Yale alumni include: In fiction and popular culture Yale University is a cultural referent as an institution that produces some of the most elite members of society and its grounds, alumni, and students have been prominently portrayed in fiction and U.S. popular culture. For example, Owen Johnson's novel Stover at Yale follows the college career of Dink Stover, and Frank Merriwell, the model for all later juvenile sports fiction, plays football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs. Yale University also is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Carraway, wrote a series of editorials for the Yale News, and Tom Buchanan was "one of the most powerful ends that ever played football" for Yale. Notes References Further reading External links Official website Yale Athletics website Yale University from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons

2021–22_Eredivisie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–22_Eredivisie

The 2021–22 Eredivisie was the 66th season of Eredivisie, the premier football competition in the Netherlands. It began on 14 August 2021 and concluded on 15 May 2022. Teams Cambuur (promoted after a five-year absence), Go Ahead Eagles and NEC (both promoted after a four-year absence) were promoted from the 2020–21 Eerste Divisie. ADO Den Haag (relegated after thirteen years in the top flight), VVV-Venlo (relegated after four years in the top flight) and Emmen (relegated after three years in the top flight) have been relegated to 2021–22 Eerste Divisie. Stadiums and locations Number of teams by province Personnel and kits Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players and managers may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality. Managerial changes Standings League table Results Fixtures and results Results by round European play-offs The European play-offs were contested by the four highest ranked teams which were not yet qualified for any European tournament. The matches were played on a home-and-away basis, from 18 to 29 May. The winner received a spot in the second qualifying round of the 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League. Qualified teams Bracket Semi-finals First legs Second legs Final First leg Second leg Promotion/relegation play-offs The seeds were assigned based on the final ranking after the regular season. The best ranked team got the highest seed (lowest number). Eredivisie teams were considered to be better ranked than Eerste Divisie teams. If a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time was played (two periods of fifteen minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners. Seven teams, six from the Eerste Divisie and one from the Eredivisie, played for a spot in the 2022–23 Eredivisie. The remaining six teams played in the 2022–23 Eerste Divisie. The highest seeded team or the team from the Eredivisie always host the second leg. Qualified teams Bracket First round First legs Second legs Semi-finals First legs Second legs Final First leg Second leg Statistics Top scorers Hat-tricks Top assists Clean sheets Discipline Player Most yellow cards: 10 Matúš Bero (Vitesse) Adam Maher (Utrecht) Mark van der Maarel (Utrecht) Most red cards: 2 Joris Kramer (Go Ahead Eagles) Mike te Wierik (Groningen) Club Most yellow cards: 65 Vitesse Most red cards: 6 Vitesse Willem II Awards Monthly awards Annual awards References External links Official website

Sébastien_Haller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sébastien_Haller

Sébastien Romain Teddy Haller (French pronunciation: [alɛʁ]; born 22 June 1994) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for La Liga club Leganés, on loan from Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund. Born in France, he plays for the Ivory Coast national team. Haller began his career in France with Auxerre, and moved on loan to Dutch Eredivisie side Utrecht in 2015, before signing on a permanent basis. Two years later, he moved to the German club Eintracht Frankfurt, winning the DFB-Pokal in 2018. English Premier League side West Ham United signed him a year later for a club-record transfer worth €49.8 million (£45 million). Haller returned to the Netherlands in 2021, signing with Ajax, for a club record fee of €22.5 million (£18.8 million). In his first six months, he won the Eredivisie and the KNVB Cup. He became the first player to score across seven consecutive UEFA Champions League matches during the 2021–22 season, and then transferred to Borussia Dortmund for an initial €31 million. Haller represented France at youth level, before switching his allegiance in 2020 to the Ivory Coast. He scored on his international debut against Madagascar, and represented the national team at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2021 and 2023, scoring the winning goal in the final of the latter tournament. Early life Haller was born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne to a French father and an Ivorian mother. Club career Auxerre During the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup, on 26 June 2011, Haller signed his first professional contract with Auxerre, agreeing to a three-year deal. Ahead of the 2012–13 season, Haller was promoted to the senior team by manager Jean-Guy Wallemme. His professional debut came on 27 July 2012, in the team's opening league match of the 2012–13 campaign against Nîmes. Utrecht On 24 December 2014, it was announced that Haller was sent on loan to Dutch Eredivisie club Utrecht until the end of the season. At the end of the season, it was announced that FC Utrecht had signed Haller. The supporters voted for Haller as the winner of the Di Tommaso Trophy 2015, Utrecht's player of the year award. Eintracht Frankfurt On 15 May 2017, Haller signed with Eintracht Frankfurt on a four-year deal for a reported fee of €7 million. In the 2017–18 DFB-Pokal, he scored four goals for Frankfurt, as the club won the final, marking the first trophy of Haller's career. In the 2018–19 Bundesliga season, he scored 15 league goals in 29 appearances as the club finished seventh. In addition to his goals scored, he also made nine assists, meaning he was involved in 24 goals, a figure only beaten in the 2018–19 season by Robert Lewandowski with 29. West Ham United On 17 July 2019, Haller signed with West Ham United on a five-year deal for a club record fee, that could rise to £45 million. He made his debut on 10 August, playing the full 90 minutes of a 5–0 Premier League loss against reigning champions Manchester City. Two weeks later, he scored his first goals in a 3–1 away win against Watford in which the latter was an acrobatic bicycle kick. Haller struggled at West Ham, attributing it to David Moyes replacing Manuel Pellegrini as manager and then preferring Michail Antonio up front, as well as the ill health of his wife and newborn son. In July 2020, Frankfurt reported West Ham to FIFA after they had failed to pay an instalment in May 2020 of £5.4 million as part of the £45 million transfer. West Ham claimed that they had withheld the payment, following a contractual dispute between the two clubs. On 16 December, Haller scored an overhead kick in a 1–1 draw against Crystal Palace that was voted as the Premier League Goal of the Month. Ajax On 8 January 2021, Haller signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with Dutch club Ajax for a club record fee of €22.5 million (£18.8 million), reuniting with his former Utrecht manager Erik ten Hag. He made his debut two days later as a second-half substitute against De Topper rivals PSV, assisting Antony for the equaliser in a 2–2 draw. On 14 January, he scored his first goal, and provided an assist, in a 3–1 away win over Twente. On 3 February, Haller was mistakenly omitted from the club's list for the knockout stages of the UEFA Europa League and therefore would be unable to play for the club in the competition. In a 5–1 away victory over Sporting CP in the UEFA Champions League on 15 September 2021, Haller scored twice in each half to become the first player to score four on his Champions League debut since Marco van Basten for A.C. Milan in 1992; the Dutchman had however already played in the competition under its former name of the European Cup. In the following fixture 13 days later, he recorded a goal against Beşiktaş, becoming the first player in the history of the competition to score five goals in his first two match appearances; against the same team on 24 November, Haller scored twice in a 2–1 win to become the first player to score nine goals in five consecutive matches of the competition. On 7 December, Haller scored in his team's Champions League group stage match, becoming only the second player to register in all six group games after Cristiano Ronaldo in 2017–18 and became the fastest player to 10 goals in competition history. He also joined Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski as the only players to score in the double-digits for goals in the group stage. On 23 February 2022, he made amends for an earlier own goal, and helped Ajax to a 2–2 away draw against Benfica in the last, becoming the first player to score in seven consecutive matches in the competition; his side lost 3–2 aggregate. With 21 league goals in 31 games, he finished the season as Eredivisie top scorer. Borussia Dortmund On 6 July 2022, Haller signed a contract with Borussia Dortmund until 30 June 2026. The transfer fee paid was €31 million, which could be increased to as much as €34.5 million after undisclosed bonuses. However, on 18 July, the forward withdrew from the club's pre-season training camp in Switzerland, after he was diagnosed with a malignant testicular tumour. He then underwent two surgeries and four cycles of chemotherapy in order to control the spread of the disease. After successfully completing his treatments, in January 2023 Haller was officially allowed to return to full-time training, as he joined the rest of Dortmund's team at their winter camp in Marbella. On 10 January, he played his first match in almost eight months, featuring in the final minutes of a friendly against Fortuna Düsseldorf. Three days later, he scored a hat-trick within eight minutes in a 6–0 victory in another friendly against Basel. On 22 January, Haller came on as a second half substitute in a 4–3 home win against Augsburg, finally making his competitive debut for Dortmund after a 6-month battle with cancer. On 4 February, he scored his first professional goal for the club in a 5–1 win against Freiburg. Haller missed a crucial penalty, when his team was trailing 1–0, during the final game of the 2022–23 Bundesliga season which ended in a 2–2 draw with Mainz. Borussia Dortmund subsequently suffered final-day heartbreak as they missed out on a first Bundesliga title for 11 years on goal difference. In 2023–24, he sustained an ankle injury which sidelined him for most of the season, in which he only scored three goals including two against TSV Schott Mainz in the DFB-Pokal and one against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final. Loan to Leganés On 30 August 2024, just before the transfer window closed, Haller joined La Liga club Leganés on loan for the 2024–25 season. International career Youth Haller was a France youth international, having represented his country of birth at every youth level and totalling 51 caps and 27 goals. He played with the under-17 team at the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Mexico, scoring in a 3–0 win over Argentina in the opening group game. On 14 November 2013, Haller made his under-21 debut, coming on for Anthony Martial in the 57th minute against Armenia in a European qualifier in Toulouse and scoring to conclude a 6–0 win. He scored a hat-trick on 25 March 2015 in a friendly win of the same score against Estonia, and he did the same on 10 November 2016 in a 5–1 win over the Ivory Coast at the Stade Pierre Brisson. Senior In November 2020, Haller was called up to the Ivory Coast national team. He debuted in a 2–1 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualification win over Madagascar on 12 November, scoring his side's game-winning goal in the 55th minute. He was called up for the finals in Cameroon, where he scored in a 2–2 group stage draw with Sierra Leone; in the last 16 against Egypt, he was substituted at half time in extra time for Maxwel Cornet as the side lost on penalties. In December 2023, he was named in the Ivorian squad for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations hosted in his home nation. In the semi-final match against DR Congo, he scored the only goal in a 1–0 victory, which qualified his country to the final. He later scored the winning goal in the final match against Nigeria which ended in a 2–1 victory. Personal life In 2022 Haller was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which he overcame, returning to professional football in January 2023. Career statistics Club As of match played 13 September 2024 International As of match played 7 June 2024 As of match played 11 February 2024. Ivory Coast score listed first, score column indicates score after each Haller goal. Honours Eintracht Frankfurt DFB-Pokal: 2017–18 Ajax Eredivisie: 2020–21, 2021–22 KNVB Cup: 2020–21 Ivory Coast Africa Cup of Nations: 2023 Individual David Di Tommaso Trophy: 2015 Bundesliga Rookie of the Month: October 2017 Premier League Goal of the Month: December 2020 Eredivisie Team of the Month: February 2022, March 2022, Eredivisie Top Scorer: 2021–22 References External links Profile at the Borussia Dortmund website Sébastien Haller at the French Football Federation (in French) Sébastien Haller – FIFA competition record (archived) Sébastien Haller – UEFA competition record (archive)

Loïs_Openda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loïs_Openda

Ikoma-Loïs Openda (born 16 February 2000) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and the Belgium national team. Club career Early career Openda played as a youth for Patro Othee FC and RFC Liège before joining the youth academy of Standard Liège. Club Brugge In 2015, he moved to the academy of Club Brugge, where he made his senior debut on 10 August 2018 in the Belgian Pro League against Kortrijk. Openda replaced Jelle Vossen after 80 minutes. Loan to Vitesse On 21 July 2020, Openda joined Dutch Eredivisie club Vitesse on a season-long loan deal. He scored his first goal for the club on 3 October, in a 3–0 win over Heracles Almelo. Vitesse reached the final of the KNVB Cup, but lost 2–1 to Ajax. Openda scored the only goal for the Arnhem-based team. In June 2021, Openda rejoined Vitesse on loan for another season. Lens On 6 July 2022, Lens announced the signing of Openda on a five-year deal from Club Brugge. The striker scored his first goal against Inter Milan in a friendly game on 22 July. On 28 October, he scored his first hat-trick for Lens in a 3–0 win over Toulouse. After eight matches without scoring, on 12 March 2023, he scored the fastest hat-trick in Ligue 1 within four minutes and 30 seconds in a 4–0 away win over Clermont, beating the previous record of Matt Moussilou. RB Leipzig On 14 July 2023, Openda signed for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig on a five-year contract. The transfer fee reported was in the region of €43 to €46 million, with potential bonuses adding up to €6 million. On 19 August, he scored his first goal on his Bundesliga debut in a 3–2 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen. On 4 October, he netted his first Champions League goal in a 1–3 home defeat against Manchester City. On 28 November, Openda scored twice at the City of Manchester Stadium against Manchester City, although his team lost 3–2. He finished his debut Bundesliga season at the club as their top scorer with 24 goals, only behind Harry Kane and Serhou Guirassy in the league. On 31 August 2024, Openda scored two goals against Bayer Leverkusen to end their unbeaten Bundesliga streak for the first time in 15 months. International career On 18 May 2022, Openda was named to the squad for the four 2022–23 UEFA Nations League matches on 3, 8, 10 and 13 June 2022 against Netherlands, Poland (twice) and Wales respectively. He played again against Wales in the UEFA Nations League on 13 September 2022. On 10 November 2022, he was named in the final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Personal life Openda is of Moroccan and Congolese descent. Openda is a Christian. Career statistics Club As of match played 6 October 2024 International As of match played 9 September 2024 Scores and results list Belgium's goal tally first. Honours Club Brugge Belgian Pro League: 2019–20 Belgian Super Cup: 2018 RB Leipzig DFL-Supercup: 2023 Individual Eredivisie Player of the Month: May 2022 Eredivisie Team of the Month: January 2022, May 2022 UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Month: March 2023, April 2023 UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year: 2022–23 References External links Profile at the RB Leipzig website Loïs Openda at the Royal Belgian Football Association Loïs Openda – UEFA competition record (archive)

Vangelis_Pavlidis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vangelis_Pavlidis

Vangelis Pavlidis (Greek: Βαγγέλης Παυλίδης; born 21 November 1998) is a Greek professional footballer who plays as a centre forward for Primeira Liga club Benfica and the Greece national team. He is of Romani descent. Club career VfL Bochum On 9 April 2016, Pavlidis signed a professional contract until the summer of 2019. On 15 May 2016, he made his debut with the club as a substitute in a 2. Bundesliga 4–2 away win against 1. FC Heidenheim. Loan to Borussia Dortmund II On 26 January 2018, Pavlidis joined Borussia Dortmund II on loan for the second half of the season. On 22 June 2018, Pavlidis loan spell was extended until summer 2019. Loan to Willem II On 17 January 2019, Willem II confirmed the signing Pavlidis on loan from Bochum until the end of the 2018–19 season. On 23 January 2019, he scored his first goal with the club after Marios Vrousai's assist in a 3–2 away KNVB Beker win against FC Twente. On 16 February 2019, he scored his first goal in Eredivisie. Willem II On 29 April 2019, Pavlidis signed a permanent deal with the club. Subsequently that year, on 2 August, in the opening game of the 2019–20 Eredivisie Pavlidis scored twice as Willem II defeated PEC Zwolle 3–1. AZ Alkmaar On 9 July 2021, Pavlidis signed a contract until 2025 at Dutch club AZ Alkmaar. Later that year, on 1 December, Pavlidis is one of the eleven nominees for the 2021 Puskás Award. Benfica On 1 July 2024, Pavlidis joined Primeira Liga side Benfica on a permanent deal, signing a five-year contract with the club; the transfer reportedly commanded an €18 million fee, plus €2 million in possible add-ons, and a 10% sell-on clause in favor of AZ Alkmaar. He made his competitive debut for his new club in a 2–0 loss to Famalicão on 11 August 2024, and scored his first goal in a 3–0 win against Casa Pia three days later. International career On 29 August 2019, Pavlidis was called up to the Greek senior team by coach John van 't Schip for the forthcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Finland and Liechtenstein. Career statistics Club As of match played 11 August 2024 International As of match played 11 June 2024 Scores and results list Greece's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Pavlidis goal. Honours Individual Eredivisie Player of the Month: August 2023, October 2023 Eredivisie Team of the Month: May 2021, October 2021, April 2022, January 2023, August 2023, October 2023, December 2023, May 2024 Eredivisie top scorer: 2023–24 (shared with Luuk de Jong) References External links Vangelis Pavlidis – UEFA competition record (archive) Vangelis Pavlidis at fussballdaten.de (in German)

Ricky_van_Wolfswinkel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_van_Wolfswinkel

Ricky van Wolfswinkel (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɪki vɑɱ ˈʋɔl(ə)fsˌʋɪŋkəl]; born 27 January 1989) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a striker for Eredivisie club FC Twente. He has played top-flight football in the Netherlands, Portugal, England, France, Spain and Switzerland and has been capped twice by the Netherlands national team. Club career Vitesse Van Wolfswinkel started his football career at the D-pupils of Vitesse Arnhem. In the A-juniors, he became top scorer in the national first division, winning a prize awarded by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) for the feat. This prize was presented by Wesley Sneijder in 2007. On 5 April 2008, Van Wolfswinkel made his debut for Vitesse's first team in a match against Sparta Rotterdam, in which he was the substitute in the 85th minute for Santi Kolk. Against De Graafschap, in the 2008–09 season, he was in the starting lineup for the first time. In his third match that season, against Sparta Rotterdam, he scored his first Eredivisie goal. Utrecht On 29 May 2009, Van Wolfswinkel announced his departure from Vitesse, subsequently signing a three-year contract with FC Utrecht. He began the 2010–11 league campaign with a goal in a 3–1 loss against Feyenoord. On 22 August 2010, he scored two goals against Willem II resulting in a 3–0 win for Utrecht. On 26 August 2010, Van Wolfswinkel scored a hat-trick against Celtic in the UEFA Europa League; Utrecht went on to win the match 4–0. On 3 October 2010, Van Wolfswinkel scored two penalties against Ajax to gain a 2–1 away win over the Dutch runners-up. Sporting CP On 3 June 2011, Van Wolfswinkel moved to Sporting CP, signing a five-year contract on a €5.4 million deal; Sporting CP was given financial aid by Sporting Portugal Fund and Quality Sports Investments. He scored his first goal for Sporting on 10 September 2011 against Paços de Ferreira in a 3–2 win. He was the SJPF Player of the Month for September 2011. Overall, he scored a total of 25 goals during the 2011–12 season, including a hat-trick in the final game, a 3–2 win over Braga at the Estádio José Alvalade on 12 May 2012. In his second season in Lisbon, Van Wolfswinkel recorded another 14 league goals in 30 games, although his team missed out on European competition by finishing 7th. He scored a hat-trick, again in a 3–2 win over Braga, on 1 April 2013. Norwich City On 22 March 2013, it was announced that Van Wolfswinkel had agreed a deal to join English club Norwich City for the 2013–14 season, a transfer worth €10 million, plus up to €2 million in bonuses. He joined the Canaries on 1 July on a four-year deal. He stated that the famous Netherlands player Johan Neeskens had urged him to join Norwich, saying, "Ricky, you have to go. It's a great club for you. If you have a great feeling, do it." He scored on his league debut on 17 August, in a 2–2 home draw for Norwich against Everton. After the match, he said in an interview that Manchester United and Netherlands international Robin van Persie also recommended Norwich to him. Van Persie was reported to have told Van Wolfswinkel that Norwich are "a difficult team to beat" and that the "crowd always get really behind them." Van Wolfswinkel was involved in controversy in the 0–0 home draw against Cardiff City on 26 October 2013. After teammate Alexander Tettey was injured, Cardiff goalkeeper David Marshall sportingly put the ball out of play. Van Wolfswinkel quickly threw the ball to Leroy Fer, who kicked the ball into the goal. This caused outrage amongst the Cardiff players, who started shoving both Van Wolfswinkel and Fer. The goal was disallowed despite it not technically being a violation of any rules. In February 2014, he was alleged to have been kicked by Manchester City's Yaya Touré, who was investigated, and Van Wolfswinkel welcomed The FA's verdict that Touré had done no wrong. Van Wolfswinkel failed to score for the remainder of the season, making 25 Premier League appearances in total, while Norwich were relegated to the Championship after finishing with only 33 points. Loans On 5 August 2014, Van Wolfswinkel joined Saint-Étienne of the French Ligue 1 on a season-long loan. He stated that his goal was to work hard for the team and to be important for the club. Van Wolfswinkel scored his first goal for the club on 25 September, the first goal in the 1–1 home draw against Bordeaux. On 30 November, he scored the second goal as the team won 3–0 in the Derby du Rhône against Lyon, his team's first home win over their rivals in 20 years. Upon his return to Norwich from his loan spell at Saint-Étienne, he scored against Rotherham United in the League Cup second round on 25 August 2015, a 2–1 away win. On 31 August 2015, Van Wolfswinkel joined Real Betis of the Spanish La Liga on a season-long loan. On 24 September, he made his first appearance in a 2–1 home defeat to Deportivo La Coruña, replacing Jorge Molina in the 59th minute. He scored his first two goals on 15 December in a Copa del Rey tie against Sporting Gijón, which finished as a 3–3 draw, and on 19 April 2016, he finally scored his first La Liga goal in a 1–0 home victory over Las Palmas. Return to Vitesse On 28 July 2016, Van Wolfswinkel rejoined Vitesse for an undisclosed fee from Norwich. On 6 August, he marked his comeback with a goal in the 21st minute to give Vitesse a 1–0 lead in an eventual 4–1 away victory over Willem II. He ultimately scored 20 goals in 32 games for the league season, one behind Golden Boot winner Nicolai Jørgensen. This included a hat-trick on 8 April 2017 in a 4–2 win over Heerenveen at the GelreDome. He scored two goals in the final of the KNVB Beker against AZ on 30 April 2017 to lead the club to the title for the first time in its 125-year history. Basel On 14 June 2017, it was announced that van Wolfswinkel would join Swiss side Basel on a three-year deal. He joined Basel's first team for their 2017–18 season under head coach Raphaël Wicky. After playing in five test games van Wolfswinkel played his first team league debut for his new club on 22 July in the 2–0 away defeat against Young Boys in the Stade de Suisse. He scored his first goal for his new club in the next match in the 3–1 home win in the St. Jakob-Park against Luzern on 30 July. On 10 August, van Wolfswinkel scored twice as Basel beat Grasshoppers 3–2; his first double strike for the club meant that he scored four times in his first four league games for the club. Van Wolfswinkel injured himself during the Champions League group stage home game against Benfica on 27 September. The game was won 5–0 and van Wolfswinkel had netted the third goal. However, the injury (a metatarsal fracture) meant that van Wolfswinkel could not play again in the first half of the season. He returned to the team after three months on 17 December in the 2–0 away win against Grasshoppers being substituted in five minutes from time. Under trainer Marcel Koller Basel won the Swiss Cup in the 2018–19 season. In the first round Basel beat FC Montlingen 3–0, in the second round Echallens Région 7–2 and in the round of 16 Winterthur 1–0. In the quarter-finals Sion were defeated 4–2 after extra time and in the semi-finals Zürich were defeated 3–1. All these games were played away from home. The final was held on 19 May 2019 in the Stade de Suisse Wankdorf Bern against Thun. Striker Albian Ajeti scored the first goal, Fabian Frei the second for Basel, then Dejan Sorgić netted a goal for Thun, but the result remained 2–1 for Basel. Van Wolfswinkel played in five cup games and scored twice. In August 2019, van Wolfswinkel underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm detected during a routine scan for concussion. After some complications and an injury in training, he returned to the squad in June the following year. His contract expired on 31 August 2020, but a week later, he signed for another two years. During their 2020–21 season under head coach Ciriaco Sforza made 25 league appearances, mainly as substitute. After the season van Wolfswinkel left the club. Between the years 2017 and 2020 he played a total of 148 games for Basel scoring a total of 54 goals. 88 of these games were in the Swiss Super League, 11 in the Swiss Cup, 16 in the UEFA competitions (Champions League and Europa League) and 33 were friendly games. He scored 28 goals in the domestic league, 4 in the cup, 6 in the European games and the other 16 were scored during the test games. International career Van Wolfswinkel played several matches for the Netherlands' national youth sides in various age groups and in August 2010 was called up for the senior national team for a friendly against Ukraine, during which he made his senior debut. He earned his second full international cap against Indonesia in June 2013. Career statistics As of match played 19 May 2024 Honours Sporting CP Taça de Portugal runner-up: 2011–12 Vitesse KNVB Cup: 2016–17 Basel Swiss Cup: 2018–19 Individual SJPF Player of the Month: September 2011 Eredivisie Team of the Month: April 2022, References External links Netherlands U19 stats at OnsOranje Netherlands U21 stats at OnsOranje Ricky van Wolfswinkel at Soccerbase Ricky van Wolfswinkel at Soccerway

Kirby_(series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_(series)

Kirby is an action-platform video game series developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. The series centers around the adventures of Kirby as he fights to protect and save his home on the distant Planet Popstar from a variety of threats. The majority of the games in the series are side-scrolling platformers with puzzle-solving and beat 'em up elements. Kirby has the ability to inhale enemies and objects into his mouth, spitting them out as a projectile or eating them. If he inhales certain enemies, he can gain the powers or properties of that enemy manifesting as a new weapon or power-up called a Copy Ability. The series is intended to be easy to pick up and play even for people unfamiliar with action games, while at the same time offering additional challenge and depth for more experienced players to come back to. The Kirby series includes 39 games, and has sold over 40 million units worldwide, making it one of Nintendo's best-selling franchises and putting it in the top 50 best-selling video game franchises of all time. Gameplay The main Kirby games are side-scrolling action platforms. As Kirby, the spherical pink protagonist, the player must run, jump, and attack enemies while traversing a number of areas, solving puzzles, and battling bosses along the way. Kirby possesses the ability to inhale objects and enemies, even those larger than himself, which he can spit out as a projectile or swallow. Some of these, when swallowed, will grant Kirby a Copy Ability, which allows him to take on a characteristic of that enemy and use it in combat. For example, upon swallowing an enemy that breathes fire, Kirby becomes able to breathe fire. Kirby can also take in air to inflate himself and fly. In most games, he can do this for as long as he wants, but his attack options become limited. Kirby games often contain a number of hidden items that unlock more parts of the game or are simple incentives to collect, and are usually required to reach 100% in-game completion. These special items are usually related to the plot of the game, most often used to create a special weapon needed to defeat the final boss. In some games, the special weapon is optional and can be used regularly in the game after defeating the final boss with it. These elements have remained constant in most series, with each game having its own unique twist to affect gameplay. Each game features uniquely-named areas such as flaming mountains, open grasslands, water-filled or submerged areas, frozen snowfields, and similar natural locations. There are also several spin-off games in the series, which involve a variety of different video game genres such as pinball, puzzle, racing, and motion-sensor-technology-based games. A number of these spin-off titles take advantage of Kirby's ball-shaped figure. Plot Characters The series' main protagonist is Kirby, who resides in the kingdom of Dream Land on a five-point-star-shaped planet called Popstar. Much of Dream Land is peaceful, and its people lead laid-back, carefree lives. However, when the peace in Dream Land is shattered by threats both terrestrial and alien, it is up to Kirby to save his home and those who reside there. Besides Kirby, many characters appear throughout the series as both allies and enemies, such as King Dedede, a gluttonous bird resembling a blue penguin and self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land. King Dedede has appeared in all Kirby games except Kirby & the Amazing Mirror. King Dedede's selfish nature or greater forces controlling him often lead him to clash with Kirby, but he mostly teams up with Kirby when a greater threat emerges, that isn't controlling him. Another major character in the series is the enigmatic Meta Knight, a chivalrous masked creature similar in size and shape to Kirby who one day wishes to fight the strongest warrior in the galaxy and leads a group of like-minded warriors. Whenever he and Kirby fight, he will almost always offer Kirby a sword in advance so that the fight is fair. While his unmasked face resembles Kirby's, his exact relationship with Kirby remains a mystery. Popstar is home to a number of common creatures, the most notable of which are called Waddle Dees. They appear in some capacity in every Kirby game and are usually passive or aggressive towards the player, with some exceptions, such as in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, where they are friendly and rely on the player to save them from cages, acting as the game's main collectible. A certain Waddle Dee known as Bandana Waddle Dee, who wears a blue bandana and commonly wields a spear, occasionally assists Kirby and appears as a playable character in some games, such as in Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Development 1992–1999: Conception and first games The first game in the Kirby series, Kirby's Dream Land for the original Game Boy, was released in Japan on April 27, 1992, and later in North America, Europe and Australasia in August that year. A simple game, consisting of five levels, it introduced Kirby's ability to inhale enemies and objects. The game contains an unlockable hard mode, known as the "Extra Game", which features stronger enemies and more difficult bosses. The North American box art showed a white Kirby, although the Japanese box art had the correct pink coloring. Originally, Shigeru Miyamoto suggested Kirby should be yellow. The second game, Kirby's Adventure, was released in Japan on March 23, 1993, in North America on May 1, 1993, and Europe on September 12, 1993. Kirby's Adventure gave Kirby the ability to gain special powers when he ate certain enemies, called Copy Abilities; the game contained a total of 25 different ones to use. These powers replaced Kirby's inhale and could be used until Kirby sustained damage causing him to drop the ability, or the player voluntarily discarded it to obtain another one. This game sets Kirby's core color as firmly pink, which was also translated to the North American box art. As one of the 1st party last games created for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Kirby's Adventure featured advanced graphics and sound that pushed the hardware's capabilities to the limit, including pseudo 3D effects on some stages. It was remade in 2002 on the Game Boy Advance, retitled Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, featuring updated graphics and sound, multiplayer support, and a new mode starring one of the game's bosses, Meta Knight. After Kirby's Adventure, the Kirby series received a number of spin-off games. Kirby's Pinball Land, released in November 1993 for the Game Boy, is a pinball game featuring Kirby as the pinball. Kirby's Dream Course, released in Japan on September 21, 1994, North America on February 1, 1995, and Europe on August 24, 1995, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, is a golf-based game which features an isometric graphic design. Kirby's Avalanche, released in Europe on February 1, 1995, and in North America on April 25, 1995, also for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, is a puzzle game, a westernized version of the Japanese game Puyo Puyo. Kirby's Dream Land 2, released in Japan on March 21, 1995, in North America on May 1, 1995, in Europe on July 31, 1995, and Australasia on November 22, 1995, for the Game Boy, brought the Copy Abilities from Kirby's Adventure to a handheld system, but due to system limitations lowered the number of abilities to seven. The game introduced three rideable animal companions: Rick the hamster, Coo the owl, and Kine the ocean sunfish. Pairing up with any of these three alters how Kirby's abilities work. It also introduced Dark Matter, a reoccurring antagonist in the Kirby series. Kirby's Dream Land 2 was the first game in the series to be directed by Shinichi Shimomura instead of Masahiro Sakurai. Shimomura would go on to direct Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. Kirby's Block Ball, released for the Game Boy on December 14, 1995, in Japan, on March 13, 1996, in North America and on August 29, 1996, in Europe, is a variation of the game Breakout, featuring multiple levels, some of Kirby's Copy Abilities, and various enemies in unique boss battles. In 1996, a Kirby minigame series, Kirby's Toy Box, was released via the St.GIGA satellite broadcasting system for the Satellaview. These minigames were given a unique broadcast date. Minigames included Arrange Ball, Ball Rally, Baseball, Cannonball, Guru Guru Ball, Hoshi Kuzushi, Pachinko, and Pinball. Kirby Super Star (also known as Hoshi no Kirby Super Deluxe in Japan and Kirby's Fun Pak in Europe) was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan on March 21, 1996, in North America on September 20, 1996, and in Europe on January 23, 1997. Kirby Super Star is composed of seven separate games and two sub-games, with four games in the beginning and three games would be unlocked after beating certain games. It features several characters and abilities which have not appeared since in the series. The game features "Helpers", which can be created by sacrificing the ability in use, to help the player dispatch enemies. Released for the Game Boy in 1997, Kirby's Star Stacker is a puzzle game which involves touching two or more similar blocks together that have Kirby's animal friends on them. The game received a sequel on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1998 in Japan titled Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu (known in English as Kirby's Super Star Stacker) 26 years after its release, the game would be internationally via the Nintendo Switch Online virtual console. Kirby's Dream Land 3, released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on November 27, 1997, in North America and on March 27, 1998, in Japan, is a direct sequel to Kirby's Dream Land 2, as it featured the return of Kirby's animal friends. Similar to Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3 features a few Copy Abilities which were modified when Kirby paired up with one of his six animal friends. The game had a multiplayer option with the second player controlling Gooey, a recurring character. The antagonist is Dark Matter, and if certain conditions are met, Zero was fought as the true final boss. The game had a unique pastel-drawing art style and used dithering to improve visual performance. There was also a planned game called Kid Kirby that was to be released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game would have served as a prequel to the series and would have utilized the SNES Mouse. The game was developed by DMA Design and was scheduled for release in 1995, but was canceled due to the declining sales of the mouse; however, early screenshots of the canceled game have been posted online. 2000–2004: Introduction of 3D graphics and further spin-offs The first game to have 3D graphics in the Kirby series, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, was released on the Nintendo 64 in Japan on March 24, 2000, in North America on June 26, 2000, and in Europe on June 22, 2001. The game features a compound ability system that allows two of the seven abilities in the game to be combined, making a new compound ability. It also marked the first playable instance of King Dedede, where sections of some stages had Kirby riding piggyback while King Dedede attacked enemies and obstacles with his hammer. A Waddle Dee is also playable, by helping Kirby with certain sections in the game. It is considered a direct follow-up to Kirby's Dream Land 3 due to the reemergence of Dark Matter and the final boss, albeit in a different form, called 02 (Zero Two). It also included three four-player minigames. The next game in the Kirby series, Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble became one of Nintendo's first motion-sensor-based games on August 23, 2000. Players are instructed to tilt the Game Boy Color to move Kirby on the screen. Quickly flicking the Game Boy Color upwards would make Kirby jump into the air. Tilt 'n' Tumble is the only Kirby game to have a special cartridge color (transparent pink) in North America. Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble 2 on the GameCube, which was supposed to use a combination of motion-sensor technology and connectivity to the Game Boy Advance via the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable, was presented during Nintendo Space World 2001 and scheduled for a May 2002 release in Japan. The Kirby theme was eventually scrapped and Kirby was replaced with a generic marble, and the game was shown again at E3 2002 as Roll-O-Rama, but eventually canceled completely. Kirby Family was a Game Boy Color piece of software developed by Natsume Co., Ltd. that would connect to a compatible Jaguar JN-100 or JN-2000 sewing machine and embroider cloth with a Kirby pattern of choice. The game was also shown during Nintendo Space World 2001 and scheduled for release on September 10, 2001, but presumably canceled due to poor sales of Mario Family which released two weeks prior. The game was leaked on September 9, 2020, as part of the Game Boy Color lotcheck leak. In late 2002, Nintendo released Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, an enhanced remake of Kirby's Adventure for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Kirby's Air Ride 64 (also known as Kirby Bowl 64 and Kirby Ball 64) on the Nintendo 64 was going to be a sequel to Kirby's Dream Course which featured an additional game mode where the player controlled Kirby on a snowboard. However, this was canceled for unknown reasons. Some of its concepts were later implemented into the only Kirby game for the GameCube, Kirby Air Ride, which was released in North America on October 13, 2003. Air Ride is a racing game which deviates greatly from other Kirby games, although still featuring series staples including enemies and Copy Abilities. After the release of Kirby Air Ride, the GameCube was going to have its own original Kirby game, simply titled Kirby for Nintendo GameCube at the time. It was nearly complete and featured at E3 2005, but was canceled due to troubles incorporating a unique multiplayer mechanic. At a later point, the game was concepted as a full 3D platformer visually similar to Kirby Air Ride, but also canceled because it did not achieve HAL Laboratory's quality standards. During the 2003 Holiday season, a Kirby e-Reader card for the Game Boy Advance was released. The card was released under two names, Kirby Slide and Kirby Puzzle. Swiping the card would allow for a sliding puzzle game starring Kirby to be played. Cards were given out at Toys "R" Us stores and in the 2003 December issues of Nintendo Power and Tips & Tricks. The game was released to advertise the English dub of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. The card would become incredibly rare, with all copies of the card believed to have been destroyed. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror was released on October 18, 2004, on the Game Boy Advance. It is the second game released on that system, following Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. It features Kirby in a Metroidvania format, with all the levels being interconnected and able to be completed in any order. Also unique was the in-game phone, which can be used to summon up to three additional copies of Kirby to fight enemies and solve puzzles. 2005–2011: Touch-based gameplay The next game in the series is Kirby: Canvas Curse, released on the Nintendo DS in Japan on March 24, 2005, North America on June 13, 2005, Europe on November 25, 2005, and Australia on April 6, 2006, under the name Kirby Power Paintbrush. Unlike most previous Kirby games, the player does not directly control Kirby with a directional pad, analog stick, face buttons, or shoulder buttons. Instead, Kirby is a helpless ball, and can only move when he gains momentum, the player painting paths with the stylus to direct his movement. This was followed by Kirby: Squeak Squad (titled Kirby: Mouse Attack in Europe) in late 2006, also on the Nintendo DS, which revived traditional Kirby gameplay and dabbled in the use of the touch screen to store several items and Copy Abilities in Kirby's stomach. Ability scrolls could be found that served as upgrades for each ability, giving them additional moves and/or enhanced functionality. An unlockable Copy Ability was also introduced. Kirby Super Star Ultra, announced for the Nintendo DS in early fall 2007 and released on September 22, 2008 in North America, is a remake of Kirby Super Star. In addition to the nine games from Kirby Super Star, seven new games have been added. The game features updated graphics, pre-rendered cutscenes, and a map on the touch screen. The game is notable for being the first Kirby game to be directed by Shinya Kumazaki, who would go on to become the general director for the series. Kirby's Epic Yarn was announced for the Wii at E3 2010 and released in North America on October 17, 2010. Epic Yarn began development as an original game by Good-Feel called Fluff of Yarn, but was given the Kirby license at Nintendo's proposal. A fourth game for the Nintendo DS was released in North America on September 19, 2011, Kirby Mass Attack. The game features multiple copies of Kirby in touch screen-based gameplay reminiscent of games such as Lemmings. Unfortunately, Mass Attack would become one of the worst selling Kirby games of all-time due to being very late for the DS' release. 2011–2021: Evolution of 2.5D platforming Kirby's Return to Dream Land (titled Kirby's Adventure Wii in PAL regions) was released on the Wii in North America on October 24, 2011, returning to the traditional Kirby gameplay and allowing up to four players to play simultaneously. Players 2–4 could choose to play as Meta Knight, King Dedede and/or Bandana Waddle Dee, each with dedicated abilities; they could also play as different-colored Kirbys which offered power copying abilities, or as a mixture of the options. The unique multiplayer mechanic originally to be incorporated in the GameCube build became the special attack in Return to Dream Land (where all players stack on each other, hold A and release at the same time). A remake for the game on the Nintendo Switch titled Kirby's Return To Dream Land Deluxe released in 2023. An anthology disc for the Wii called Kirby's Dream Collection was released on July 19, 2012, in Japan and on September 16, 2012, in North America to celebrate Kirby's 20th Anniversary. It includes six games from the early history of the series, which are Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. It also has new Challenge Stages that run on the engine of Kirby's Return to Dream Land (titled Kirby's Adventure Wii in PAL regions), and a Kirby history section, which includes three episodes from Hoshi no Kirby (Kirby: Right Back at Ya! in North America). Similar to the Super Mario 25th Anniversary packaging in 2010, a booklet and a soundtrack containing music from the various games in the series are released alongside the disc. On October 1, 2013, during a Nintendo Direct presentation, a new untitled original Kirby game for the Nintendo 3DS was announced, later named Kirby: Triple Deluxe. The game was released in Japan on January 11, 2014, in North America on May 2, 2014, in Europe on May 16, 2014, and in Australasia on May 17, 2014. It incorporated action spanning varied depths, where Kirby could swap between the foreground and background areas. It included a multiplayer fighting minigame called Kirby Fighters, where players could choose one of ten available abilities and fight on themed stages, with the winner being the last Kirby standing. It also included a rhythm-based action minigame starring King Dedede titled Dedede's Drum Dash. There were also over 250 in-game "keychains" to collect that featured sprites from previous Kirby games as well some original sprites based on characters from Triple Deluxe. In August 2014, Kirby Fighters Deluxe and Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe (enhanced versions of the minigames in Kirby: Triple Deluxe) were released. At E3 2014, a new game for the Wii U was announced. Titled Kirby and the Rainbow Curse in North America and Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush in PAL regions, the game is a sequel/successor to Kirby: Canvas Curse and features a similar gameplay style. It was released by Nintendo on January 22, 2015, in Japan, February 20, 2015, in North America, May 8, 2015, in Europe and May 9, 2015, in Australasia. On March 3, 2016, during a Nintendo Direct presentation, Nintendo unveiled a new game based on the context of Kirby: Triple Deluxe called Kirby: Planet Robobot, the second Kirby game released on the Nintendo 3DS. It was released alongside a set of Amiibo figures made for the Kirby franchise, including a newly announced Amiibo, Waddle Dee, on April 28, 2016, in Japan, June 10, 2016, in North America and Europe, and June 11, 2016, in Australasia. The game is compatible with other Amiibo. It also includes 2 new minigames, called Kirby 3D Rumble and Team Kirby Clash, the former being an arena based, 3D action game where Kirby uses his inhale to defeat large groups of baddies to rack up points and achieve a high score, and the latter being a mix of fighting, platform, and role-playing. Players can level up to level 10, and can play with AI or other friends. In a Nintendo Direct presentation on April 12, 2017, three new Kirby games were announced for Kirby's 25th Anniversary. The first game was Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, an enhanced version of the Kirby: Planet Robobot minigame Team Kirby Clash which was released the same day it was announced. The second game was Kirby's Blowout Blast, an enhanced version of the Kirby: Planet Robobot minigame Kirby 3D Rumble which was released on July 4, 2017, in Japan, and on July 6, 2017, in North America, Europe and Australasia. The third game was Kirby Battle Royale, an action-multiplayer fighting game which was released on November 3, 2017, in Europe and Australasia, November 30, 2017, in Japan, and January 19, 2018, in North America. At E3 2017, Nintendo unveiled a new untitled original installment for the Nintendo Switch, later named Kirby Star Allies. The game was released on March 16, 2018. Kirby can throw Friend Hearts to turn enemies into computer- or player-controlled allies, a variation of the "Helper System" from Kirby Super Star. "Power Combinations" return from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and Kirby: Squeak Squad. Kirby can also summon "Dream Friends", consisting of major Kirby characters acting as Helpers, which includes King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Waddle Dee. On March 8, 2019, Epic Yarn got a remake/port on the Nintendo 3DS entitled Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn. On September 4, 2019, Nintendo released a new Nintendo Switch game, Super Kirby Clash, on the Nintendo eShop, as the successor to Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, the game was co-developed with Japanese video game company Vanpool, who would co-develop all Kirby games until its closure in 2023. The game expands on the previous installment with new quests. On September 23, 2020, Nintendo released a new Nintendo Switch game, Kirby Fighters 2, on the Nintendo eShop, as the successor to Kirby Fighters Deluxe. Before its official reveal, the game was leaked on the Play Nintendo website, but was later taken down. The game expands on the previous installment with new game modes and an exclusive ability, Wrestler. 2022–present: Introduction of 3D gameplay During the Nintendo Direct event held on September 23, 2021, a new Nintendo Switch title in the Kirby series was revealed, titled Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It is the first true 3D entry in the mainline series (fourth overall since the spin-offs Kirby Air Ride, Kirby's Blowout Blast, and Kirby Battle Royale) and was released on March 25, 2022, becoming the highest-selling game in the series. The game was co-developed with Japanese video game company Vanpool. The Forgotten Land is the first Kirby game to feature the new logo, which was introduced in 2022. On July 12, 2022, a new Nintendo Switch title in the Kirby series was announced, titled Kirby's Dream Buffet. It is a multiplayer party game, and was released on the Nintendo eShop on August 17, 2022. A remake of Kirby's Return to Dream Land for the Nintendo Switch, titled Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe was revealed during the Nintendo Direct event held on September 13, 2022, and was released on February 24, 2023. It features new Mecha and Sand Abilities and the graphical style of a comic book. Vanpool, who co-developed all Kirby games since Super Kirby Clash, closed on May 31, 2023. Reception The Kirby games have received reception that ranges from mixed to very favorable reviews by players and critics. According to Metacritic reviews: Kirby: Canvas Curse and Kirby's Epic Yarn are the most acclaimed games in the series, while Kirby Battle Royale and Team Kirby Clash Deluxe are the lowest-rated. Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Kirby: Squeak Squad are respectively the highest-rated and the lowest-rated mainline series games. Sales Many Kirby games have performed commercially well, selling at least one million or more copies worldwide. Kirby's Dream Land, the first title in the series, had been its best-selling game at 5 million copies until it was overtaken by Kirby and the Forgotten Land thirty years into the series, with it selling 7.5 million copies. Kirby's Dream Land 3 would be the become the worst selling mainline Kirby game at just 76 thousand copies sold only in Japan, as international sales information for games that have sold less than one million copies is unavailable. The Kirby manga would have over 10 million copies in print in 2023. As a brand, the series sold $150 million to $200 million worth of merchandise in 2002. Legacy Crossovers Kirby appears as a character in Nintendo's crossover fighting game series Super Smash Bros. (also developed by series creator Masahiro Sakurai), appearing in all installments of the franchise; Meta Knight and King Dedede have also appeared in every entry since Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Many items from the Kirby series also appear in Super Smash Bros. such as the Maxim Tomato (all games), Warp Star (since Melee), Dragoon (since Brawl) and Star Rod (all games) as items, and Knuckle Joe (since Brawl), Nightmare (since 3DS/Wii U) and Chef Kawasaki (Ultimate) appear as characters summoned by the Assist Trophy. All playable Kirby characters in Smash Bros. have the ability to jump more than twice. Kirby has also made cameo appearances in other games as well, such as The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, EarthBound, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Stunt Race FX, Arcana, Pokémon Stadium. The two Kirby Amiibo figures, one based on the Super Smash Bros. series and the other made for the Kirby franchise are compatible with Mario Kart 8 where they can be scanned to unlock a costume for the player's Mii based on his appearance, and Super Mario Maker where they can be scanned to unlock a Kirby costume. Kirby Café In 2016, "Kirby Café" was unveiled as a restaurant chain in Japan themed around Kirby with two permanent locations, one in Sumina in the Solamachi entertainment complex, and the other within Hakata-ku in the Canal City Hakata entertainment complex. Kirby Café has had a number of temporary locations which have run continuously since August 2016. Other media Anime The Kirby games were the basis for a Japanese animated TV series which premiered in Japan on October 6, 2001, where it was titled simply Hoshi no Kirby. It was produced by Warpstar, Inc., a company formed from a joint investment between Nintendo and HAL Laboratory, Inc. It was licensed in North America by 4Kids Entertainment, under the title Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, on 4Kids TV, and was distributed by 4Kids Entertainment in North America and Nelvana Limited in Canada, with VHS and DVD distribution in North America by FUNimation Entertainment and DVD distribution in Australia by Magna Pacific. It ended in Japan in 2003 with 100 episodes. The show is about the adventures Kirby has with his friends Tiff and Tuff after he crash lands in Dream Land (this is known as "Pupu Village" in the Japanese version and "Cappy Town" in the English dub), on Planet Popstar. Here, he is a legendary Star Warrior destined to save the universe from the intergalactic conqueror known as Nightmare. However, because he was awakened 200 years too early he arrived in a childlike state and his powers haven't fully developed. The ruler of Dream Land, King Dedede, is jealous of the attention Kirby receives from its inhabitants and frequently orders monsters from Nightmare's company, Nightmare Enterprises, in an attempt to do away with Kirby. Nightmare Enterprises at first appears to be an intergalactic delivery company, but is really a front for Nightmare's intergalactic conquest that dupes unsuspecting customers into funding Nightmare's armies. Not yet ready to achieve his destiny, Kirby must learn how to use his incredible abilities with the help of his friends, and sometimes with the help of the enigmatic Meta Knight, who, while claiming to be loyal to King Dedede, will often work behind the scenes in order to aid Kirby or train him in the use of his abilities. The show is based on the game series, but rather than being a direct adaptation of any of the games it uses characters and concepts from the games (especially Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby's Adventure, and Kirby Super Star) to tell its own story. Comics, manga and novels Kirby stars in several manga series that have been drawn by over 20 manga artists. The longest running Kirby manga, Kirby of the Stars: The Story of Dedede Who Lives in Pupupu, was serialized in CoroCoro Comic from 1994 to 2006, and released 25 tankōbon volumes with over 10 million copies being printed. The series was written and illustrated by Hirokazu Hikawa. The series was later published as a "best-of" collection, which featured the series' first new chapter in 11 years, as well as bonus comics. It was published in English as Kirby Manga Mania by Viz Media. Originally, Viz had plans to localize The Story of Dedede Who Lives In Pupupu for North America in 2009, For unknown reasons, these plans were quietly abandoned by 2011. An ongoing series of novels based upon the Kirby series have been published by Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko since 2013. They are witten by Mie Takase and illustrated by Tau and Poto Karino. Notes References External links Official website Official website (in Japanese)

Masahiro_Sakurai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masahiro_Sakurai

Masahiro Sakurai (桜井 政博, Sakurai Masahiro, born August 3, 1970) is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series. Apart from his work on those series, he also led the design of Meteos in 2005 and directed Kid Icarus: Uprising in 2012. Formerly an employee of HAL Laboratory, Sakurai left the company in 2003 and in 2005 with his wife Michiko Sakurai (also ex-HAL Laboratory) founded their company Sora Ltd., under which they work on a freelance basis. He was also an author of a weekly column for Famitsu magazine from 2003 to 2021, and has done voice acting work in some of his games, most notably providing the voice of King Dedede in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and the Super Smash Bros. series. Since 2022, Sakurai has been creating videos for his YouTube channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, where he discusses game design and his career. Career Masahiro Sakurai was born on August 3, 1970, in Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan. One of Sakurai's earliest experiences in the video game industry began when he worked for HAL Laboratory, where he created the character Kirby at age 19 and directed his first title, Kirby's Dream Land. Sakurai left HAL on August 5, 2003. He explained in an interview with Nintendo Dream that that he felt it would be difficult to create new projects while staying at HAL due to the direction of the gaming industry, where the risk of failure was high. While he was not being pressured by HAL to create Kirby sequels, he noted increasing tension within the industry as a whole: "It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming. Even if it's a sequel, lots of people have to give their all to make a game, but some people think the sequel process happens naturally." Soon after, Sakurai began working on a project with Q Entertainment, along with Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This collaboration resulted in Meteos in 2005, a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. On September 30, 2005, Sakurai announced that he had formed his own company, Sora Ltd. Two games were announced to be in development but no information on the titles had been divulged. As for the future of the Super Smash Bros. series, Nintendo and HAL Laboratory president Satoru Iwata, during Nintendo's E3 2005 press conference, promised an online iteration of the game would come to the Nintendo Wii. In issue #885 of Famitsu magazine, Sakurai revealed that he would be serving as a director and game designer on Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in 2008, after personnel borrowed from 19 different developer studios assisted in development. Sakurai had been updating daily the Super Smash Bros Brawl website called the Smash Bros. Dojo. Starting a year previous the release, he revealed Brawl secrets and gameplay content through the site. The Smash Bros. Dojo had regular updates from May 22, 2007, to April 14, 2008. On the final day of updates, it was revealed that Sakurai provided the voice for King Dedede in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards as well as Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He and his company, Sora Ltd. alongside Nintendo, started a first-party studio, Project Sora, which was 72% owned by Nintendo and 28% owned by Sora Ltd. It was revealed at E3 2010 that Sakurai and Project Sora were working on Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS. Project Sora was closed and ended development on June 30, 2012. At E3 2011, Nintendo announced that Sakurai was working on Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Sakurai began development of the title upon the release of Kid Icarus: Uprising in March 2012. In February 2013, Sakurai was diagnosed with calcific tendinitis near his right shoulder, which caused him substantial pain whenever he moved his arm. He mentioned that this could effectively slow down his work, as he does some of his game testing himself. Sakurai's wife, Michiko, has worked on the graphical user interface for many of his games, including Kirby Air Ride, Meteos, and the Super Smash Bros. series. In a January 2015 column in Weekly Famitsu, Sakurai alluded to the possibility of retirement, expressing doubt that he would be able to continue making games if his career continued to be as stressful as it was. In December 2015, Sakurai once again stated that he was not sure if there would be another game in the Smash Bros. series, prior to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate being released in 2018 with Sakurai once again as director. On March 14, 2022, Sakurai was awarded Best Creator by Weekly Famitsu. Sakurai also announced that he is working on a new project not related to game production. Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games Sakurai launched Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, a YouTube channel in both English and Japanese in August 2022. The channel's videos are focused on game development and design as well as his career. He stated that the channel was founded because he wanted to reach more people with his lessons after being asked to lecture at schools. Sakurai additionally noted that other venues for lessons from game developers, such as the Game Developers Conference, focused on more advanced, technical details, rather than more basic principles. Less than a day after its launch, the English edition of his channel gained over 200,000 subscribers. The opening and ending jingles for the channel were composed by Yuzo Koshiro. Works Notes References External links Masahiro Sakurai's channel on YouTube Masahiro Sakurai on Twitter

Super_Smash_Bros._Ultimate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros._Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a 2018 crossover fighting game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series, succeeding Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014). The game follows the series' traditional style of gameplay, in which players control one of the various characters and use attacks to weaken their opponents and knock them out of an arena. It features a wide variety of game modes, including a single-player campaign and multiplayer versus modes. Ultimate features 89 playable fighters, including all characters from previous Super Smash Bros. games as well as newcomers. The roster ranges from Nintendo characters to those from third-party franchises. Planning for the game had begun by December 2015, with full development starting after the completion of 3DS/Wii U's downloadable content (DLC). Series creator and director Masahiro Sakurai returned along with Bandai Namco Studios and Sora, the studios that developed 3DS/Wii U, with their return speeding up the preparation process. Sakurai's goal with Ultimate was to include every character from previous games in the series, despite the various development and licensing challenges this would present. Several well-known video game musicians contributed to the soundtrack, with Hideki Sakamoto writing the main theme "Lifelight". Nintendo first teased Ultimate in a Nintendo Direct in March 2018 and fully revealed it at E3 2018 the following June. It later received two additional Directs prior to its release on December 7, 2018. The game received universal acclaim, with some critics calling it the best game in the series; they praised its large amount of content and fine-tuning of existing Smash gameplay elements, although its online mode received criticism. Ultimate is the best-selling fighting game of all time and one of the best-selling on the Switch, having sold over 34 million copies as of March 2024. It is also a popular competitive fighting game and has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Ultimate received downloadable content adding new fighters, stages, and other content for nearly three years after release. Gameplay Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a platform fighter for up to eight players in which characters from Nintendo games and third-party franchises fight to knock each other out of an arena. Each player has a percentage meter which raises as they take damage, thus increasing the knockback they take and making them easier to launch in the air and out of the arena. Standard battles use one of three victory conditions: Timed, where players aim to win the most points by defeating opponents within a time limit; Stock, where players have a set number of lives and aim to be the last player standing; and Stamina, where players reduce their opponent's health down to zero to defeat them. Players can adjust the rules to their liking and save them as presets for future matches. Players can also enable various items which attack enemies or grant them power-ups, along with Poké Balls and Assist Trophies, which respectively summon Pokémon and other non-playable characters to assist them in battle. In Timed matches, certain Assist Trophies can be attacked and defeated to earn points. Each character also possesses a powerful Final Smash attack, which can be performed either by obtaining a Smash Ball or by filling up a special meter, both of which can be toggled on and off. The base game features 104 different stages, with additional stages being added alongside DLC fighters. Stages can be played in alternative Battlefield and Omega forms or toggled to remove stage hazards. A new feature called Stage Morph allows players to select two stages that the game alternates between at certain intervals during a match. Other tweaks include new icons and gauges for character-specific abilities, such as Cloud's Limit gauge. In addition to returning modes such as Classic, Special Smash, and Home-Run Contest, Ultimate adds new modes. These are Smashdown, where each character can only be played once; Squad Strike, where players battle in teams of multiple characters; and a tournament mode that allows up to 32 players to battle in playoff brackets. Spirits Ultimate introduces the Spirits mechanic, replacing the collectible trophies from previous games. Each of these Spirits, based on characters from represented franchises, can be used to power up a fighter with unique abilities. Players mainly gain Spirits through pre-made challenges called "Spirit Battles" that represent the character the Spirit depicts, which are embodied by one or more of the game's fighters and other specific level effects. For example, the Spirit battle of Rayquaza, a flying dragon Pokémon, requires players to defeat a large version of Ridley with a similar color palette and wind effects. Players are encouraged to strategically choose Spirits based on the level effects; in the same example, a player would need to equip a Spirit that provides wind resistance or immunity, or one that allows them to deal extra damage to a giant opponent. A separate mode called the Spirit Board presents a rotating set of Spirit battles for players to gain Spirits from. Spirits have a growth and evolution system, in which they can be leveled up to become more powerful or converted into Cores to summon new Spirits. Certain Spirits will also become an "enhanced" form upon reaching max level, but will return to level 1. Nintendo offers limited-timed Spirit events in cross-promotion with other games and franchises, with the Spirits featured only available to collect during the event. Eventually, these Spirits make their way into general rotation and can be found on the Spirit Board. The local multiplayer mode also allows for the option to use Spirits. World of Light Ultimate features the return of Adventure Mode, which was absent in 3DS/Wii U. It is now integrated into the Spirits mode with a new story, World of Light, which prominently uses the game's Spirit mechanics. The mode's narrative begins with an evil entity, Galeem, destroying the Smash Bros. world, vaporizing almost all of the fighter characters and placing them under his imprisonment; only Kirby, due to his Warp Star, evades this attack. Players explore the titular World of Light, a new world that Galeem created in the original world's place, to rescue captured fighters and Spirits -the remnants of other characters' physical forms- by completing marked Spirit Battles. Players can use regained allies and Spirits to overcome certain challenges on the map and defeat Galeem. However, after Galeem is defeated, a new enemy, Dharkon, emerges; after Dharkon's defeat, it wages war against Galeem. If just Galeem is defeated, Dharkon will engulf the world in darkness, but if just Dharkon is defeated, then Galeem will cover the universe with light. However, by defeating an equal amount of light and dark Spirits on the final map, players are able to challenge and defeat both of them, freeing the Spirits from their control and allowing them to return to the real world. Additional features The game supports local multiplayer, local wireless with other systems, and online play via Wi-Fi or LAN connections. By defeating players online, players earn tags which can be traded for in-game currency to buy new Spirits, music, and Mii Fighter costumes. The game is compatible with Joy-Con controllers, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, and GameCube controllers via a USB adapter. Like the previous entry, amiibo figurines can be used to create AI-controlled Figure Players, which can be trained to become stronger. Shortly after the game's release, a service for the Nintendo Switch Online mobile app, known as "Smash World", was launched, which allows players to check their game statistics and share images and videos captured from the game to social media. Ultimate features over 900 music tracks, which can be played through the Switch's handheld mode while in standby mode. Version 3.0 of the game, released in April 2019, adds a Stage Builder, which allows players to create custom stages which can be shared or downloaded through the Switch Online service. The update also includes a replay editor, allowing players to edit stored replays, which can be shared online or downloaded to other devices. These replays are available within the Smash World app. An update in May 2019 provided limited support for the virtual reality VR Kit of Nintendo Labo, allowing players to view computer-only matches in VR or play in a 1-on-1 mode against the computer. An update in September 2019 added the Home-Run Contest mode from previous Smash games. Playable characters Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, like other games in the Super Smash Bros. series, features a crossover cast of fighters from several different Nintendo franchises, as well as fighters from series by third-party developers such as Konami, Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, PlatinumGames, Microsoft, SNK, and Disney. The base game features 74 playable fighters, consisting of all 63 previous fighters from past entries and 11 newcomers: the Inklings from Splatoon; Princess Daisy from the Mario series; Ridley and Dark Samus from the Metroid series; Simon Belmont and Richter Belmont from the Castlevania series; Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening; King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong series; Isabelle from the Animal Crossing series; Ken Masters from the Street Fighter series; and Incineroar from Pokémon Sun and Moon. When starting the game, players only have access to the eight starter characters of the original Super Smash Bros. and unlock the rest by completing the game's Classic modes, playing through World of Light, or fighting a certain amount of battles. Certain characters whose movesets are directly based on other characters are now classified as "Echo Fighters", possessing similar movesets and proportions to the fighters they are based on, but with unique animations and gameplay differences. On the character selection screen, these characters can either be listed individually or stacked with the fighters they are based on. Select characters also have alternative skins featuring different genders or sometimes other characters, such as Bowser Jr., who has the other Koopalings as skins, but with identical animations and abilities. Several returning characters received updates to their appearances, such as Mario having Cappy from Super Mario Odyssey accompanying him and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's incarnation of Link replacing the one from Twilight Princess. Additional fighters have been added to the game via post-release downloadable content (DLC). The first of these, Piranha Plant from the Mario series, was released in January 2019 and made available for free to those who purchased and registered the game with a My Nintendo account before the end of that month. Additional fighters, each coming with a unique stage and related music, have been released both individually and as part of two Fighters Pass bundles. The first Fighters Pass consisted of five characters: Joker from Atlus' Persona 5, released in April 2019; the Hero from Square Enix's Dragon Quest series, released in July 2019; Banjo & Kazooie from Rare's Banjo-Kazooie series, released in September 2019; Terry Bogard from SNK's Fatal Fury series, released in November 2019; and Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, released in January 2020. The second Fighters Pass, titled Fighters Pass Volume 2, consisted of six additional fighters and was the final content planned for Ultimate. The first character in this collection, Min Min from ARMS, was released in June 2020. Steve, the default player avatar from Mojang Studios' Minecraft, was released in October 2020. Sephiroth, the antagonist from Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII, was released in December 2020, with players able to unlock him a few days early by defeating him in a limited-time boss battle known as the "Sephiroth Challenge". Pyra and Mythra, a dual character from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, were released in March 2021. Kazuya Mishima from Bandai Namco's Tekken series was released in June 2021. Sora from Disney and Square Enix series Kingdom Hearts was the final fighter to be added in October 2021. Development Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd., the same studios that developed Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, for the Nintendo Switch, with series creator Masahiro Sakurai returning as game director. Unlike previous Super Smash Bros. games, the team was not assembled from the ground up, which sped up preparation time. The project plan for the game was in the works by December 2015, when the DLC for 3DS and Wii U was in development, and finished after it was completed. Staff gathering was done soon afterward. The development period was shorter compared to previous entries in the series. Hatena assisted with the development of some elements, and tri-Crescendo contributed to programming and design. According to Sakurai, producing a Super Smash Bros. game for the Switch was the last request that former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had given him before his death in 2015, and he wanted to make the game the best possible product he could to respect him. Sakurai sought to include every character from previous games, as to not disappoint fans. However, he knew this would be a complex problem for both development and licensing; it would also drastically increase the cost of development. The return of Bandai and Sora made it easier for this to happen. Sakurai also wanted to adjust character abilities to speed up the game, although not to an extent that would alienate players unfamiliar with the series. Sakurai knew that Ultimate was a core game for Nintendo and that it had a dedicated player base that he did not want to disappoint, and believed that completing this goal was necessary to satisfy them. Sakurai was also faced with the decision to either create a completely new game system or build off of pre-existing ones; he chose to build off pre-existing ones because there would only be about a third of the characters he desired in the final game. All the returning characters' abilities had to be re-balanced so they could work in Ultimate. Originally, gameplay would differ between the Switch's docked and handheld modes, but Sakurai scrapped this idea since the system's screen in handheld mode was better than he thought. Sakurai believed this would be the only Smash game to have the full roster of returning characters, calling the effort to include the characters, music, stage settings, and other elements as "unprecedented", and cautioned that future games in the series would likely be smaller in scope. However, he still wanted to add as many fighters as possible through DLC. Voice lines recorded by David Hayter for Snake were re-used for Ultimate. Xander Mobus, who voiced Crazy Hand, Master Hand, and the announcer in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, also made a return with new voice clips, in addition to reprising his role as Joker from Persona 5 when he was added as DLC. The addition of Ridley from Metroid as a playable character had been highly requested within the Super Smash Bros. community for some time. In 2008, Sakurai stated that he knew Ridley was a high-demand character, but thought that he was "impossible" to add unless they were able to sacrifice the character's size for balancing purposes. So that Ridley could be included in the game, Sakurai studied the art of the character and redesigned him so he could stand upright. All characters were chosen at the beginning of development except for Incineroar, who had not been created yet; the team instead left a space open for a Sun and Moon Pokémon. The Inklings' ink mechanic proved challenging to implement due to its interactions with environments. The team built Ultimate from scratch with new assets and content. Localization manager Nate Bihldorff stated that the game significantly upgraded lighting effects and texture rendering from the game engine of the Wii U version. The World of Light mode was inspired by Brawl's (2008) Subspace Emissary, and Sakurai chose to start it with a cataclysmic event because he thought it would leave a greater impact on players. The team conceived the Spirits mechanic because they wanted to create an enjoyable single-player mode, but did not have enough resources to create character models. While it did not let them tell stories for individual fighters or create new locations and rules, it let them use various characters and assets. One part of the team chose Spirits to include in the game and had to thoroughly research them; according to Sakurai, the Spirits mode was essential for using various franchises. Music Like previous games in the series, Ultimate features several well-known video game music composers and arrangers providing a mix of original music and rearrangements of various tracks for the represented franchises, with over 1,000 tracks in total. New to Ultimate is the tying of tracks to franchises instead of individual stages, as well as the ability to create custom playlists to listen to outside the game when the Switch is in handheld mode. Sakurai stated that he began contacting composers over a year before release, providing them with a database of over a thousand suggested track ideas. In addition, he allowed them to submit their own personal favorites, with those choices being given priority for inclusion. While Sakurai oversaw the process and preferred that the music retain the spirit of the original games, the direction of them was generally handled by the composers themselves. The main theme, "Lifelight", composed by Hideki Sakamoto, is the basis of most of the game's original music. Downloadable content As with previous entries, Nintendo planned to offer new fighters through DLC; however, unlike with the 3DS and Wii U, where players could request which characters they wished to see in the game, Nintendo chose which characters they would add by November 2018. Like the previous title, additional Mii costumes were released as paid DLC, with certain costumes also adding new music tracks to the game. Sakurai believed that despite characters like Joker, the first announced DLC fighter, not being from games usually associated with Nintendo, they were added because they were "emblematic" of the types of characters they wanted to add to Ultimate. He also stated that they "bring just a whole different level of fun and enjoyment for players". The Piranha Plant was chosen as a DLC character because Sakurai wanted to add diversity to the roster. Nintendo met with Rare studio head Craig Duncan at E3 2018 to discuss the possibility of including Banjo and Kazooie as downloadable content; Duncan, believing it to be "a great opportunity", agreed and connected the two development teams for further discussions. Sakurai noted that Banjo and Kazooie were the second most requested character for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in a Nintendo-sanctioned fan vote in 2015, and that their addition happened "quite easily", despite the property being owned by Microsoft through its acquisition of Rare. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, stated that negotiating their inclusion was "an easy deal to make" thanks to Microsoft's strong partnership with Nintendo. The development of Fighters Pass Volume 2 was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as due to stay-at-home orders in Japan, Sakurai and his development team had to work remotely. According to Daniel Kaplan of Mojang Studios, early discussions between Nintendo and Microsoft including Minecraft content in the Super Smash Bros. series had begun roughly five years prior to Steve's addition into the game. The character's inclusion required the development team to rework every stage in the game to accommodate Steve's gameplay mechanics. Sakurai had wanted to include Sora from Kingdom Hearts in the game because he was the top fighter requested for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in the 2015 fan vote. However, they initially thought that the legality surrounding the intellectual property with Disney would be insurmountable, and originally planned for only five fighters in the second pass. However, Sakurai met a Disney representative at an award venue, which facilitated the start of negotiations for Sora's inclusion. Nintendo, Disney, and Square Enix saw towards including Sora in the game and overseeing all aspects related to his inclusion, with several limitations and guidelines they were required to follow. The Sora Challenger Pack featured a promotional tie-in with the 2020 rhythm game Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory: players with Melody of Memory save data on their Nintendo Switch would unlock the music track "Dearly Beloved (Swing Version)". Release Ultimate was teased during a Nintendo Direct presentation on March 8, 2018, under the working title Super Smash Bros., with the release year shown to be 2018. Nintendo formally announced the game at E3 2018, revealing that the full roster of characters from past games would be included, as well as its release date. Demo versions were playable at E3 in June and at San Diego Comic-Con the following month. IGN nominated Ultimate for its Best Game of E3 2018 award; the game won Best Nintendo Switch Game from both IGN and Gamescom. Two Nintendo Direct presentations in 2018, one on August 8 and another one on November 1, were devoted to the game, revealing new characters, stages, and game modes. Nintendo released Super Smash Bros. Ultimate worldwide on December 7, 2018. In addition to the standard retail version, a special edition containing a Super Smash Bros.-themed Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and a Switch with a download code was also released. An additional special edition contained a pair of Super Smash Bros.-themed Joy-Con as well as a Switch console, a Super Smash Bros.-themed dock, and a download code for the game. A GameCube controller with the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate logo was released on November 2, 2018. One of the game's new additions had the character Mr. Game & Watch assuming the appearance of a feather- and loincloth-wearing Native American when using one of his attacks—a reference to Fire Attack (1982), in which players controlled a cowboy defending his fort from attacking indigenous people. Some users on social media saw this as racist, leading to Nintendo of America apologizing and removing the animation in an update shortly after release. Two weeks before its release, a leaked copy of the game was distributed across the internet. Nintendo took steps to issue copyright strikes on YouTube videos using data mined content, while fans worked to isolate spoilers, particularly the World of Light story mode, from those that had played the leaked version. Reception Ultimate received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to the review aggregator platform Metacritic. Critics lauded the huge cast of characters and levels, new game modes, and combining of the best elements from its predecessors. French video game website Jeuxvideo.com called it the best game in the series, praising its features which "brilliantly mix gargantuan content with nostalgia". Bleacher Report hailed the game's colorful art style, faster gameplay, and unique stages. IGN praised the game's decision to bring back every character from the series as "ambitious and excellent". The game's massive soundtrack and portable music player were praised by The Verge. However, the game's online mode received criticism for its technical performance and matchmaking. Many players found significant lag affecting their games, even when using wired connections over wireless, while the game's matchmaking features did not adhere to players' criteria, with players frequently playing matches with rule sets they did not choose. The matchmaking process was further criticized for making it difficult for friends to join matches over random players, and not allowing multiple local players to join in online matches. There had been so many complaints on Ultimate's subreddit that the administrators forwarded all complaints to a separate thread. Ultimate's World of Light mode also received mixed reviews. While some found the single-player mode both accessible and challenging, others found the mode tedious and excessive. Sales In November 2018, Nintendo announced Ultimate was the most pre-ordered game for the Switch and in the series. The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment reported that Ultimate was the fastest-selling Switch and Super Smash Bros. game in the United Kingdom, with physical launch sales 302% higher than those for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, 233% higher than those for 3DS, and 62.5% higher than those for Brawl. In its first three days on sale in Japan, the game sold 1.2 million copies, outselling Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the region. Within 11 days of its release, Ultimate had sold more than three million copies within the United States, making it the fastest-selling Switch game in the country. It was similarly the fastest-selling Switch game as well as the fastest-selling game for any Nintendo console in Europe based on the first 11-day sales. It was estimated that the game sold and shipped over five million copies within its first three days of release. Within three weeks, Ultimate became the fifth best-selling Switch game in the United Kingdom, surpassing the sales of Splatoon 2. In January 2019, Amazon reported that Ultimate was their highest selling video game product of 2018, with Nintendo officially announcing that the game had shipped over 12.08 million copies worldwide. Ultimate was also Nintendo's fastest-selling game of all time until being surpassed by Pokémon Sword and Shield in 2019. By September 2020, the game had sold over 21.10 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling fighting game of all time, surpassing the record of Street Fighter II, and became the third-best-selling Nintendo Switch game, only behind Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. As of June 30, 2024, total sales reached 34.66 million. Awards The game won the award for "Best Nintendo Switch Game", "Best Fighting Game", and "Best Multiplayer Game" in IGN's Best of 2018 Awards, whereas its other nominations were for "Game of the Year" and "Best Video Game Music". Esports EVO 2019, held on August 2–4, 2019, featured Ultimate as one of its main events. It was the largest offline Smash Bros. tournament of all time, with 3,534 entrants signed up. It set a new record for EVO concurrent viewership, with over 279,000 viewers during Top 8. On May 8–10, 2020, top Super Smash Bros. Melee player Hungrybox partnered with NFL running back Le'Veon Bell and esports organization Team Liquid to host The Box, an online tournament with a $10,000 prize pool. With over 8,000 entrants, it was the largest online Smash Bros. tournament of all time. In February 2020, it was announced that the Smash World Tour would feature both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate players for a grand prize pool of $250,000. The tournament would have included international qualifiers, with the grand finals' location to be in the United States. However, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly led to several of the qualifiers getting either postponed or canceled. The Smash World Tour was successfully relaunched in 2021, featuring a mix of online and offline qualifiers and culminating in a final offline championship. In 2022, an officially licensed circuit was introduced, being the Panda Cup, featuring Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However on November 24, 2022, Nintendo stated that the Smash World Tour 2022 could not continue, as they did not have a license from Nintendo. Accusations of Panda CEO, Alan Bunney, caused many players who had qualified for the Panda Cup to drop out. This caused both the Panda Cup and the Smash World Tour 2022 Championships to be cancelled, along with the Smash World Tour 2023. Notes References External links Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at MobyGames Official website

The_Game_Awards_2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2020

The Game Awards 2020 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2020. It was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, and took place on December 10, 2020. The preshow ceremony was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. Unlike previous Game Awards, the show was broadcast virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Keighley presented at a soundstage in Los Angeles, while musical performances took place virtually at stages in London and Tokyo. The show introduced the award's first Future Class, a list of individuals from the video game industry who best represent the future of video games, Innovation in Accessibility award, an award for games that featured notable accessibility options. The show was live streamed across 45 different platforms. It featured musical performances from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Eddie Vedder, and presentations from celebrity guests, including Reggie Fils-Aimé, Gal Gadot, Brie Larson, and Keanu Reeves. The Last of Us Part II received the most nominations and wins in the show's history—eleven and seven, respectively—and was awarded Game of the Year. Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross won Best Narrative for their work on the game, while Laura Bailey was awarded Best Performance for her role as Abby. Several new games were announced, including Ark II, Perfect Dark, and an untitled Mass Effect game. The show was the most expensive ceremony to date. It was viewed by over 83 million streams, the most in its history to date, with 8.3 million concurrent viewers at its peak. It received a mixed reception from media publications, with praise directed at new game announcements, and criticism for not allowing developers more time to speak. Some critics and viewers shared concerns over the success of The Last of Us Part II due to its developer's crunch practices. Background As with previous iterations of The Game Awards, the 2020 show was hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley. He returned as an executive producer alongside Kimmie Kim, and Richard Preuss and LeRoy Bennett returned as director and creative director, respectively. Sydnee Goodman returned as host of the preshow. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Keighley did not want to host a normal ceremony. Not wanting to take a hiatus and inspired by the success of Summer Game Fest, he considered hosting from his home but his board urged him to attempt a larger show on par with previous years. In case of a significant surge of COVID-19 cases in California, the crew had several back-up plans, including broadcasting from Keighley's house. He worked with his partners to develop a virtual show; he and his team took inspiration from other shows throughout the year, including the Democratic National Convention, in which the "audience" was featured on virtual screens, as well as the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, wherein the hosts were isolated on stage and the winners accepted via video call. The presentation used three soundstages in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo; each had minimal attendees, mostly related to production crew and presenters. Keighley said this allowed them to include additional presentation events as with past shows, as well as explore taking future shows to different venues. The 2020 show—featuring a production of more than 400 people, six of whom are full-time employees—had a budget of under US$10 million and was the most expensive to date, partly due to the COVID-19 tests required for the crew and the worldwide remote camera set-ups. It remained profitable due to revenue from advertisers and sponsors, as well as minor earnings from streaming services. The show's theme was strength and comfort due to the impact of the pandemic. Keighley wanted to implore the theme of unity, given the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in November 2020; he cited The Game Awards 2018 as an example of this theme, which had led with Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aimé, Microsoft's Phil Spencer, and Sony's Shawn Layden sharing the stage. Keighley felt the inclusion of film and television stars was an interesting way to show a wider appreciation for the industry. His team wanted to include Henry Cavill in the show, but he was busy working on The Witcher. While developing the show, Keighley spoke to hundreds of viewers via Zoom to discuss their own interests, often alongside industry figures like Valve Corporation president Gabe Newell and Epic Games creative director Donald Mustard. As with the previous show, the presentation ran alongside the Game Festival, consisting of playable demos and additional in-game content. The show introduced the award's first Future Class, a list of individuals from across the video game industry who best represent the future of video games. The inductees included industry professionals such as Kinda Funny's Blessing Adeoye Jr., Naughty Dog's Halley Gross, and GameSpot's Kallie Plagge. The presentation was aired on December 10, 2020, live streamed across more than 45 online platforms. It aired on more than ten networks in China, including Bilibili, Douyin, and Huya Live, and on several networks in India including Disney+ Hotstar, JioTV, and MX Player. Announcements Around April and May in 2020, Keighley was worried about a potential lack of game announcements due to the impact of COVID-19 on the industry; however, several developers were able to submit their announcements and trailers for demonstration. Announcements on recently released and upcoming games were made for: New games announced during the ceremony included: Winners and nominees The nominees for The Game Awards 2020 were announced on November 18, 2020. Any game released on or before November 20, 2020 was eligible for consideration. The nominees were compiled by a jury panel with members from 96 media outlets globally; ballots were sent to outlets on October 29 and due back on November 6, though they had until November 13 to submit updated ballots. Outlets were required to submit three games for each category to determine the nominees. Winners were determined between the jury (90%) and public votes (10%); the latter was held via the official website and on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and closed on December 9. The two exceptions were the Most Anticipated Game and Player's Voice awards, which were fully nominated and voted-on by the public; the former was determined exclusively on Twitter and announced during the show, and the latter was announced on December 8 after several rounds of voting. A new Innovation in Accessibility award was added for games that featured notable accessibility options. Around 18.3 million people participated in the public vote, doubling from the previous show. Awards Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡). Video games Esports and creators Games with multiple nominations and awards Multiple nominations The Last of Us Part II received eleven nominations, the most in the show's history. Other games with multiple nominations included Hades with nine, Ghost of Tsushima with eight, Final Fantasy VII Remake with six, and Doom Eternal with five. Sony Interactive Entertainment had 26 total nominations, more than any other publisher, followed by Supergiant Games and Xbox Game Studios with eight. Multiple awards The Last of Us Part II received the most wins in the show's history, with seven. Four games—Among Us, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, and Hades—won two awards. Across its two winning games, Sony Interactive Entertainment won a total of nine awards, while Innersloth, Square Enix, Supergiant Games, and Xbox Game Studios won two. Presenters and performers Presenters The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or introduced trailers. All other awards were presented by Keighley or Goodman. Performers The following individuals or groups performed musical numbers. A planned orchestral version of Cyberpunk 2077's music was scrapped when the game was delayed to the same day as the ceremony, rendering it ineligible for nomination. Ratings and reception Nominees Inverse's Corey Plante felt the cutoff date led to several games getting snubbed, including Demon's Souls and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, as well as Pokémon Sword and Shield, which was eligible for both the 2019 and 2020 awards but was unrecognized in both. He felt Ghost of Tsushima was more deserving of a Best Score and Music nomination than Doom Eternal. Den of Geek's Matthew Byrd similarly lamented the lack of recognition for Demon's Souls and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Kat Bailey of USgamer questioned Doom Eternal's nomination for Game of the Year, describing it as "messy, unfocused, and, well, just not as good" as its predecessor. Kotaku Australia's Alex Walker similarly found the nomination misplaced and considered games like Half-Life: Alyx and Microsoft Flight Simulator more deserving. Ceremony The show received a mixed reception from media publications. VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi praised the ceremony, particularly applauding its celebration of diverse games such as The Last of Us Part II and Tell Me Why as well as the varied and interesting new game announcements. Todd Martens of Los Angeles Times felt the show should have allowed more time for the developers to speak and discuss their artistic visions behind the games, noting the presentation does little to demonstrate video games as art. Eurogamer's Martin Robinson said the show was understandably "low-key" but called it a "three-hour long advert". Inverse's Ana Diaz criticized the rapid announcement of winners between premieres and during the preshow, preventing developers from accepting the awards, and its focus on Hollywood actors over game creators. Similar to concerns over Death Stranding's predominance in the nominations and ceremony for the 2019 awards due to its creator Hideo Kojima's friendship with Keighley, some viewers shared concerns related to The Last of Us Part II at the 2020 awards, both for its awards success and due to the developer's crunch practices. The Last of Us Part II was well-received at release but narrative elements polarized some critics and players, and the game had been subject to review bombing; Keighley clarified the awards were not rigged in the manner some viewers had suggested and there was no influence of Naughty Dog or its staff on the award selection, citing the game's popularity among players and media alike as proven by its runner-up placement in the Player's Voice award. Kotaku's Ian Walker criticized the game's Best Game Direction win, noting Hades should have won due to developer Supergiant Games's less demanding work culture. TheGamer's Peter Glagowski similarly felt the game's awards were a message excusing crunch culture in game development. Keighley felt it would be difficult to incorporate criteria related to games developed under poor industry practices like crunch into the awards selection process without becoming a slippery slope, but believes discussions of these practices should be a conversation held by the larger community. Viewership Over 83 million streams were used to view the ceremony, the most in the show's history to date, with 8.3 million concurrent viewers at its peak. On Twitch, the show had over 2.63 million concurrent viewers, more than double the previous year, with 9,000 creators co-streaming the ceremony. On YouTube, live viewership increased 84 percent over the previous year. In total, live hours viewed increased by over 129 percent across Facebook Gaming, Twitch, and YouTube. The show trended worldwide on Twitter, with a 31 percent increase in conversation from the previous year, while usage of the hashtag #TheGameAwards increased 107 percent. Keighley expressed his surprise by the consistent growth of the show over the years, but confessed it has led him to fear "that year where it doesn't grow ... There's going to be a year where we don't have the same viewers". Notes References External links Official website

Rakel_Hiltunen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakel_Hiltunen

Lea Rakel Hiltunen (née Lyytikäinen; born 2 July 1940 in Keitele) is a Finnish social worker and politician. She was a member of the Parliament of Finland from 1999 to 2015, representing the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP). == References ==

Parliament_of_Finland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Finland

The Parliament of Finland (Finnish: Suomen eduskunta [ˈsuo̯men ˈeduskuntɑ]; Swedish: Finlands riksdag [ˈfinlɑnds ˈriksdɑː(ɡ)]) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The Parliament consists of 200 members, 199 of whom are elected every four years from 13 multi-member districts electing 6 to 37 members using the proportional D'Hondt method. In addition, there is one member from Åland. Legislation may be initiated by either the Government or one of the members of Parliament. The Parliament passes legislation, decides on the state budget, approves international treaties, and supervises the activities of the government. It may bring about the resignation of the Finnish Government, override presidential vetoes, and alter the constitution. To make changes to the constitution, amendments must be approved by two successive parliaments, with an election cycle in between, or passed as an emergency law with a 167/200 majority. Most MPs work in parliamentary groups which correspond with the political parties. The Parliament currently comprises nine parliamentary groups. Since the establishment of the Parliament in 1905, the parliamentary majority has been held once by a single party: the Social Democrats in the 1916 election. Thus, for the Government to gain a majority in the Parliament, coalition governments are favored. These are generally formed by at least two of the three historically major parties: the Social Democrats, Centre, and National Coalition. Ministers are often but not necessarily MPs. The Parliament meets in the Parliament House (Finnish: Eduskuntatalo, Swedish: Riksdagshuset), which is located in central Helsinki. The most recent parliamentary election took place on 2 April 2023. After the 2023 election the Orpo Cabinet was formed by the National Coalition, Finns and Swedish People's parties as well as the Christian Democrats. Name Finnish The Parliament's Finnish name is eduskunta, uncapitalized. The word was created in 1906 when the unicameral Parliament was established, with the approximate meaning of an 'Assembly of Representatives'. This word is used mostly to refer to Finland's legislature but can also be used as a general term for legislatures in any country. Swedish In Swedish, the Parliament's name is riksdag, uncapitalized. This is also the general term for the Swedish legislature. Riksdag derives from the genitive of rike ('realm') referring to the independent state of Finland, and dag, meaning diet or conference. Before independence, until the Constitution Act of 1919, the Parliament was known, in Swedish, as lantdagen (cognate of landtag, having the sense of "subnational assembly") which was the old term for the Diet of Finland. History The Parliament of Finland was preceded by the Diet of Finland (Swedish: lantdagen; Finnish: maapäivät, modern Finnish: valtiopäivät), which had succeeded the Riksdag of the Estates in 1809. When the unicameral Parliament of Finland was established by the Parliament Act in 1906, Finland was an autonomous grand duchy and principality under the Imperial Russian Tsar, who ruled as the Grand Duke, rather than as an absolute monarch. Universal suffrage and eligibility was implemented, making Finland the second country in the world to adopt universal suffrage. Women could both vote and run for office as equals, and this applied also to landless people, with no excluded minorities. The first election to the Parliament was arranged in 1907. The first Parliament had 19 female representatives, an unprecedented number at the time, which grew to 21 by 1913. The first years of the new Parliament were difficult. Between 1908 and 1916 the power of the Finnish Parliament was almost completely neutralized by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the so-called "sabre senate" of Finland, a bureaucratic government formed by Imperial Russian Army officers during the second period of "Russification". The Parliament was dissolved and new elections were held almost every year. The Finnish Parliament received the true political power for the first time after the February Revolution (First Revolution) of 1917 in Russia. Finland declared its full independence on 6 December 1917, and in the winter and spring of 1918 endured a civil war in which the forces of the Senate, known as the White Guard, defeated the socialist Red Guard. After the war, monarchists and republicans struggled over the country's form of government. The monarchists seemed to gain a victory when the Parliament elected a German prince as King of Finland in the fall of 1918. This decision was made on the basis of the other Nordic countries also having monarchs. However, the king-elect abdicated the throne after Imperial Germany was defeated in World War I, on 11 November 1918. In the parliamentary election of 1919, the republican parties won three-quarters of the seats, extinguishing the monarchists' ambitions. Finland became a republic with a parliamentary system, but in order to appease the monarchist parties, which favoured a strong head of state, extensive powers were granted to the President of Finland. When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in the Winter War, in early December 1939 Parliament was evacuated and the legislature temporarily relocated to Kauhajoki, a town in western Finland far away from the frontline. The parliament held 34 plenary sessions in Kauhajoki, with the last on 12 February 1940. Another temporary relocation was seen during the renovation of the Parliament House in 2015–2017 when the Parliament convened in the neighbouring Sibelius Academy. The Constitution of 1919, which instituted a parliamentary system, did not undergo any major changes for 70 years. Although the government was responsible to the Parliament, the President wielded considerable authority, which was used to its full extent by long-standing President Urho Kekkonen. As the Constitution implemented very strong protections for political minorities, most changes in legislation and state finances could be blocked by a qualified minority of one third. This, in conjunction with the inability of some of the parties to enter into coalition governments, led to weak, short-lived cabinets. During President Mauno Koivisto's tenure in the 1980s, cabinets sitting for the whole parliamentary term became the norm. At the same time, the ability of qualified minorities to block legislation was gradually removed and the powers of the Parliament were greatly increased in the constitutional reform of 1991. The revised 2000 draft of the Finnish constitution removed almost all domestic powers of the President, strengthening the position of the cabinet and the Parliament. It also included the methods for the discussion of EU legislation under preparation in the Parliament. Dissolutions of Parliament The Parliament of Finland has been dissolved before the end of its term fourteen times during its existence. The most recent instance was on 4 June 1975. Elections The Parliament's 200 representatives are elected directly by ballot on the basis of proportional representation. A standard electoral period is four years. Elections have previously taken two days, but as early voting has become more popular, they are now conducted during one day; the third Sunday of April of an election year. Every Finnish citizen who is at least 18 years of age on the election date is entitled to vote in general elections. There is normally no need to register as a voter, and citizens receive an invitation by mail. With certain exceptions, such as military personnel on active duty, high judicial officials, the President of the Republic, and persons under guardianship, any voter may also stand as a candidate for the Parliament. All registered parties are entitled to nominate candidates; individual citizens and independent electoral organizations must be endorsed by a sufficient number of voters through the form of supporter cards to apply. In parliamentary elections, Finland is divided into 13 electoral districts. The number of representatives granted to each district is proportional to its population, except for Åland, which always elects one representative. The provincial state offices appoint an election board in each electoral district to prepare lists of candidates and to approve the election results. The Ministry of Justice has the ultimate responsibility for holding elections. The President of Finland can call for an early election. As per the version of the constitution currently in use, the president can do this only upon proposal by the Prime Minister and after consultations with the parliamentary groups while the Parliament is in session. In prior versions of the constitution, the President had the power to do this unilaterally. There is no hard and fast election threshold to get a seat in Parliament. This results in a large number of parties being represented. In 2019, for instance, nine parties won seats, with six winning at least 15 seats. With so many parties and the lack of a threshold, it is nearly impossible for one party to win an outright majority. During the history of the Parliament, only one party has ever won an outright majority–when the Social Democrats won 103 seats in the election of 1916. Since independence in 1917, no party has ever won the 101 seats needed for a majority. Instead, most Finnish governments have been coalitions formed by three or more parties. Many of them have been grand coalitions between parties with varying ideological backgrounds, as the socialist and non-socialist blocs usually do not win enough seats between them to govern on their own. The seats for each electoral district are assigned according to the D'Hondt method. Electoral districts were originally based on the historical lääni division of 1634, but there have been several subsequent changes. Although there is no set election threshold, many electoral districts have become smaller in terms of population in recent decades, and some now elect as few as six representatives. This makes it harder for small parties to win MPs in these districts. Parliamentary groups MPs work in parliamentary groups (eduskuntaryhmä). The parliamentary groups generally correspond to political parties, although occasionally dissidents can be removed from the party group and form their own. As of September 2019 there are nine groups, one of which is a one-man group. A group generally tries to reach a unanimous decision on a common position, but failing to do so may take a vote. This position then defines voting in the parliamentary session proper according to party discipline. Exceptions to this principle are made on matters on which no party line or government policy exists. Parliamentary groups make their decisions independently of their party leadership, and group leaders of major parties accordingly rank alongside government ministers and party leaders as influential political leaders. Each parliamentary group receives funding for its operations and may have staff of its own. Formation of government The President of Finland consults the Speaker of Parliament and representatives of parliamentary groups about the formation of a new Finnish Government. According to the Constitution of Finland, the Parliament elects the Prime Minister, who is appointed to office by the President. The Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful politician in the country. Other ministers are appointed by the President on the Prime Minister's proposal. While individual ministers are not appointed by the Parliament, they may be individually removed by a motion of no confidence. The government, as a whole, must also have the confidence of the Parliament and must resign on a motion of no confidence. The government has collective ministerial responsibility. Before the Prime Minister is elected, the parliamentary groups (which correspond to their respective political parties) negotiate on the government platform and on the composition of the government. On the basis of the outcome of these negotiations, and after having consulted the Speaker of the house and the parliamentary groups, the President informs the Parliament of the nominee for Prime Minister. The parliament votes on the proposal, and if successful, the nominee is elected Prime Minister. Although Finland essentially always has multi-party coalition governments, the process is made smoother by party discipline: coalition MPs vote together to ensure a majority. Sessions The annual session of parliament generally begins in February and consists of two terms, the first from January to June, the second from September to December. At the start of an annual session, the nation's political leaders and their guests attend a special worship service at Helsinki Cathedral before the ceremonies continue at the Parliament House, where the President formally opens the session. On the first day of each annual session, the Parliament selects a speaker and two deputy speakers from its members. This election is chaired by the oldest MP in office. The three members who are elected to serve as speaker and first deputy speaker and second deputy speaker respectively take the following solemn oath before the Parliament;"I, [name of the MP], affirm that in my office as Speaker I will to the best of my ability defend the rights of the people, Parliament and the government of Finland according to the Constitution."During each annual session of Parliament, Finland's delegations to the Nordic Council and the Council of Europe are assigned. The Parliament also elects five of its members to the bench of the High Court of Impeachment for the duration of the parliamentary term. Committees The Parliament has 17 committees. Most committees have 17 permanent members, except for the Grand Committee, which has 25; the Finance Committee, which has 21; and the Audit and Intelligence Oversight Committees, which have 11 each. In addition to these permanent members, each of the committees has a number of substitute members. On average, each member of the Parliament is also a member of two committees. Most of the committees are special committees, while the Grand Committee deals with EU affairs, but also has a wider range of tasks. As Finland does not have a constitutional court, the role of the Constitutional Law Committee is to oversee constitutional affairs. The Committee for the Future is also noteworthy, as it does not usually deal with bills, but instead assesses factors relating to future developments and gives statements to other committees on issues relating to the future outlooks of their respective fields of speciality. The newest committee is the Intelligence Oversight Committee which was created in 2019. Proceedings Domestic legislation Most of the bills discussed in the parliament originate within the Council of State. However, any member or group of members may introduce a bill, but usually these will not pass the committee phase. A third way to propose legislation was introduced in 2012: citizens may deliver an initiative for the parliament's consideration, if the initiative gains 50,000 endorsements from eligible voters within a period of six months. When delivered to the parliament, the initiative is dealt with in the same way as any other bill. Any bill introduced will initially be discussed by the members of the Parliament, prior to being sent to the committee to which it belongs. If the bill concerns several areas of legislation, the Grand Committee will first ask the other committees for opinions. If there is any concern about the constitutionality of the bill, the opinion of the Constitutional Committee is demanded. The Constitutional Committee works in non-partisan manner and uses the most distinguished legal scholars as experts. If the committee considers the bill to have unconstitutional elements, the bill must either be passed as a constitutional change or changed to be in concordance with the constitution. In most cases, the latter route is chosen. The bills receive their final form in the parliamentary committees. The committees work behind closed doors but their proceedings are publicized afterwards. Usually the committees hear experts from special interest groups and various authorities after which they formulate the necessary changes to the bill in question. If the committee does not agree, the members in minority may submit their own version of the bill. The committee statement is discussed by the parliament in two consecutive sessions. In the first session, the parliament discusses the bill and prepares its final form. In the first part of handling, a general discussion of the bill is undertaken. After this, the parliament discusses individual points of the bill and chooses between the bill proposed by the committee, minority opinions and the eventual other forms the members submit during the discussion. If the parliament wishes to do so, it may during the general discussion of the first handling submit the bill to the Grand Committee for further formulation. The bill is also always treated by the Grand Committee if the parliament decides to adopt any other form than the final opinion of the committee. The committee then formulates its own version of the bill and submits this to the parliament which then adopts either its former version or the version of the Grand Committee. The committee statements are influential documents in that they often used by the courts as indicative of the legislator's intent. In the second session, the final formulation of the bill is either passed or dismissed. If the bill entails a change in constitution, the second session takes place only after the next election unless the parliament decides to declare the matter to be urgent by a majority of five-sixths. In constitutional matters, the bills are passed by a majority of two-thirds. In other cases, the simple majority of votes given is enough. International treaties requiring changes to legislation are accepted by a simple majority in a single session. Treaties requiring changes to the constitution or changing the borders of Finland require a qualified majority of two-thirds. EU legislation The matters relating to the jurisdiction of the European Union are decided by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. However, as changes to European legislation are being prepared, the Parliament participates actively in formulating the government's position on these changes. As the proceedings of the committees are public, European Union matters handled by the Parliament tend to become public after committee meetings. However, the government may ask the Parliament for a secret handling of an EU matter. This can be the case if the government does not want to reveal its position to foreign nations before the beginning of negotiations. European Union legislation under preparation is brought to the Grand Committee by the Finnish government when they have received notice of the proposal from the European Commission. The Grand Committee discusses the matter behind closed doors, and if appropriate, requests opinions from the committees of the Parliament. Both the Grand Committee and the specialized committees hear expert opinions while preparing their opinions. Finally, the Grand Committee formulates its opinion of the proposal. However, in matters concerning the external relations of the European Union, the Finnish stance is formulated by the Committee for Foreign and Security Policy, rather than the Grand Committee. The Finnish government is obligated by law to follow the parliamentary opinion when discussing the matter with the European Commission and other member states. The government may change the Finnish stance, but it is required to report such changes to the Parliament immediately. After the European Union has made a legislative decision that is to be implemented by the Parliament, the matter is brought back to the parliament as with usual legislation. At this stage, the Finnish state is committed to passing a bill fulfilling the requirements demanded by the EU, and the Parliament must vote accordingly. Other matters Every member of parliament has the right to ask the government written questions. The questions are answered in writing within 21 days by a minister responsible for the matter and do not cause any further discussion. Furthermore, the parliament has a questioning session from time to time. In these, the members are allowed to ask short verbal questions, which are answered by the responsible ministers and then discussed by the parliament. Any group of twenty members may interpellate. The motion of censure may be for the whole government or any particular minister. The motion takes the form of a question that is replied to by the responsible minister. If the parliament decides to approve the motion of censure, the committee responsible for the matter in question formulates the motion, which is then passed by the parliament. The government may decide to make a report to the parliament in any matter. After discussion the parliament may either accept the report or pass a motion of censure. A passed motion of censure will cause the government to fall. Any group of 10 members may raise the question of the legality of the minister's official acts. If such question is raised, the Constitutional Committee will investigate the matter, using all the powers of police. After the final report of the committee, the parliament decides whether to charge the minister in the High Court of Impeachment. The criminal investigation of the Constitutional Committee may also be initiated by the Chancellor of Justice, Parliamentary Ombudsman or by any parliamentary committee. Similar proceedings may also be initiated against the Chancellor of Justice, Parliamentary Ombudsman or the judges of the supreme courts. The President of Finland may be also the target of a criminal investigation of the Constitutional Committee, but the parliament must accept the indictment by a majority of three-fourths and the charge must be treason, high treason or a crime against humanity. Members of the Parliament Members of the Parliament are not employees and cannot voluntarily resign or be laid off. They can be granted leave or dismissal only with the consent of the Parliament. Members of the Parliament enjoy parliamentary immunity. Without the parliament's approval, members may not be prosecuted for anything they say in session or otherwise do in the course of parliamentary proceedings. MPs may not be prevented from carrying out their work as members of parliament. They may be charged with crimes they have committed in office only if the parliament gives a permission to that end with a majority of five-sixths of given votes. For other crimes, they may be arrested or imprisoned only for crimes which carry a minimum punishment of six months in prison, unless the parliament gives permission to arrest the member. The members receive a monthly taxable remuneration (palkkio) of 7,137 €, which is raised to 7,494 € after four years of service and to 7,993 € after twelve years. It is not legally a salary. In addition, all MPs automatically receive a tax-free compensation of expenses between 987 € and 1,809 € depending on the location of ones home. MPs from districts far from Helsinki can thus receive compensation for a second apartment in Helsinki. MPs may travel for free within the country by train, bus, or plane for purposes related to legislative work. Within the Helsinki metropolitan area, they may freely use taxis. Eduskunta is responsible for its own finances and the Minister of Finance is obliged to include their proposal to the state budget as is regardless of their own opinion. MPs are aided in their work by personal assistants, although there are fewer assistants than MPs and not every MP has one. Assistants are formally employed by the Parliamentary Office, but can be selected and directed by the MP. A member who is elected to the European Parliament must choose between the two parliaments because a double mandate is not permissible. On the other hand, the members may have any municipal positions of trust, and it is common for them to have a position in a municipal council. If MPs leave the parliament or die in office, they are replaced by candidates from the same list they were elected from in the previous election, in order of their electoral score (the D'Hondt quotient). Those so selected are from a substitute list, the substitutes being named at the same time as the electoral results are announced. Finland does not have a by-election system. The members have an unlimited right to discuss the matters at hand. However, they must behave in a "solemn and dignified manner" and refrain from personal insults. If the member breaks against this rule in the session of parliament, they may be interrupted by the speaker. Grave breaches of order may be punished by two weeks' suspension from office by the decision of the Parliament. If a member is convicted of an intentional crime for a term in prison or of an electoral crime to any punishment, the parliament may decide to dismiss the member if two-thirds of the votes given are for dismissal. The median age of MPs was 50 as of 2022, the oldest MP being 76 years (Erkki Tuomioja) and youngest 28 years (Iiris Suomela). 94 women were elected as MPs in the 2019 election (47%), though due to midterm replacements the number of female MPs dropped to 91 (45.5%). 8% of the population is born abroad, however there are only 4 current foreign-born MPs (2%), Bella Forsgrén (born in Ethiopia), Hussein al-Taee (born in Iraq), Suldaan Said Ahmed (born in Somalia) and Aki Lindén (born in Denmark). 7% of MPs are Swedish-speakers, slightly higher than their proportion of the population (5.2%). Parliament House Before the construction of the Parliament House, the Parliament met in various different locations. The Diet of Finland, the predecessor of the Parliament, was tetracameral and did not regularly meet together. The Diet of Porvoo (1809) met in various buildings in Porvoo, with Borgå gymnasium as the main hall, the noble and burgher estates meeting in the town hall and the peasants' estate in chief judge Orraeus' house. However, the Diet assembled only once and did not reconvene until 1863. In 1863, the Diet began regular meetings again, reconvening in the House of Nobility (Ritarikatu 1). This building still stands, but is no longer in governmental use. Whereas nobility continued to meet there, in 1891 a new House of the Estates was inaugurated for the other estates (clergy, burghers and peasants). This building is today owned by the state and occasionally used by the Government of Finland. When the modern 200-member Parliament was founded in 1906, they first met in the local voluntary fire brigade house (Keskuskatu 7), because there was not enough space for them in the House of Estates. The fire brigade house was demolished in 1967 and replaced by the Helsinki World Trade Center building. In 1911, the Heimola House, a building designed by Onni Tarjanne, was inaugurated at Yliopistonkatu 5. This building was demolished in 1969 and replaced by a 9-story office building. In 1923 a competition was held to choose a site for a new Parliament House. Arkadianmäki, a hill beside what is now Mannerheimintie, was chosen as the best site. An architectural competition was held in 1924, and it was won by the firm Borg–Sirén–Åberg with their proposal, Oratoribus. Johan Sigfrid Sirén (1889–1961), who was mainly responsible for preparing the proposal, was tasked with designing the Parliament House. The building was constructed 1926–1931 and was officially inaugurated on 7 March 1931. Ever since then, and especially during the Winter War and Continuation War, it has been the scene of many key moments in the nation's political life. Parliament House was designed in the classic style of the 1920s. The exterior is reddish Kalvola granite. The façade is lined by fourteen columns with Corinthian capitals. The first floor contains the main lobby, the Speaker's reception rooms, the newspaper room, the Information Service, the Documents Office, the messenger centre, the copying room, and the restaurant and separate function rooms. At both ends of the lobby are marble staircases leading up to the fifth floor. The second or main floor is centered around the Chamber. Its galleries have seats for the public, the media and diplomats. Also located on this floor are the Hall of State, the Speaker's Corridor, the Government's Corridor, the cafeteria and adjacent function rooms. The third floor includes facilities for the Information Unit and the media and provides direct access to the press gallery overlooking the Session Hall. The Minutes Office and a number of committee rooms are also located here. The fourth floor is reserved for committees. Its largest rooms are the Grand Committee Room and the Finance Committee Room. The fifth floor contains meeting rooms and offices for the parliamentary groups. Additional offices for the parliamentary groups are located on the sixth floor, along with facilities for the media. Notable later additions to the building include the library annex, completed in 1978, and a separate office block, called Pikkuparlamentti, completed in 2004. The building underwent extensive renovations in the years 2007–2017 as part of the preparation for Finland's centennial independence celebration. Election results 2023 Result of the election held on 2 April 2023: See also List of members of the Parliament of Finland, 2015–19 Parliament of Åland Sámi Parliament of Finland Senate of Finland Finnish Government Politics of Finland List of political parties in Finland References Sources Apunen, Osmo (1987), Rajamaasta tasavallaksi. In: Blomstedt, Y. (ed.) Suomen historia 6, Sortokaudet ja itsenäistyminen, pp. 47–404. WSOY. ISBN 951-35-2495-7. External links Media related to Parliament of Finland at Wikimedia Commons Official website History of the Finnish Parliament Findicator – Voting turnout in the Finnish Parliamentary Elections since 1908

Social_Democratic_Party_of_Finland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Finland

The Social Democratic Party of Finland (Finnish: Suomen sosialidemokraattinen puolue Finnish pronunciation: [ˈsuo̯men ˈsosiɑ(ː)liˌdemokrɑːtːinen ˈpuo̯lue], SDP, nicknamed: demarit in Finnish; Swedish: Finlands socialdemokratiska parti, SD) is a social democratic political party in Finland. It is the third largest party in the Parliament of Finland with a total of 43 seats. Founded in 1899 as the Workers' Party of Finland (Finnish: Suomen työväenpuolue; Swedish: Finlands arbetarparti), the SDP is Finland's oldest active political party and has a close relationship with the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions. It is also a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance, Socialist International and SAMAK. Following the resignation of Antti Rinne in December 2019, Sanna Marin became the country's 46th Prime Minister. SDP formed a new coalition government on the basis of its predecessor, in effect continuing cooperation with the Centre Party, the Green League, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party. Seven of the Finnish Government its nineteen ministers are SDP members. In September 2023, Antti Lindtman was elected leader of the party following Marin's resignation after the 2023 election. History The party was founded as the Workers' Party of Finland in 1899, with its first meeting being held from 17–20 July in Turku. At the beginning of the 1900s the party presented demands as well as solutions to the tenant farmer question, the managing of employment, improvement of workers' rights, freedom of speech and an 8-hour work day.In its 1903 second party conference in Forssa, the party's name was renamed to the present form: Social Democratic Party of Finland, but the Grand Duchy of Finland's then governor-general Nikolay Bobrikov had outlawed the SDP from using "social democratic" in their name before, but this ban was not followed on by the party members when the name was changed. At the same time, the at the time radical Forssa Programme was agreed upon, which served as the official party platform until 1952. The goals of the programme were as follows: an 8-hour workday, a minimum wage, universal compulsory education and prohibition. The Forssa Programme is based on the Erfurt Programme approved by the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1891 and the Social Democratic Party of Austria's programme, respectively. Its immediate demands have been fulfilled, but the most significant and currently unfulfilled requirement is the right to vote directly on laws (direct democracy, as opposed to representative democracy [except for two times, and then just on advisory referendums: once about prohibition in 1931 and another on the 1994 Finnish European Union membership referendum.]) The demands on total separation of church and state, abolition of religious education in all schools and the prohibition of alcohol have all since then been abandoned. The SDP was closely associated with the Finnish Trade Union Federation (SAJ), established in 1907, with all of its members also being members of the party. The party remained a chiefly extra-parliamentary movement until universal suffrage was introduced in 1906, after which the SDP's share of the votes reached 47% in the 1916 Finnish parliamentary election, when the party secured a majority in the parliament, the only time in the history of Finland when one party has had such a majority. The party lost its majority in the 1917 Finnish parliamentary election after the Russian Provisional Government had rejected its Valtalaki 1917 proposal and disbanded the Finnish government, starting a rebellion with the broader Finnish labour movement that quickly escalated into the Finnish Civil War in 1918. SDP members declared Finland a socialist republic, but they were defeated by the forces of the White Guard. The war resulted in most of the party leaders being killed, imprisoned or left to seek refuge in Soviet Russia. In addition, the process leading to the civil war and the war itself had stripped the party of its political legitimacy and respectability in the eyes of the right-wing majority. However, the political support for the party remained strong. In the 1919 Finnish parliamentary election, the party, reorganised by Väinö Tanner, received 80 of the 200 seats of the parliament. In 1918, former exiled SDP members founded the Communist Party of Finland (SKP) in Moscow. Although the SKP was banned in Finland until 1944, it was represented by front organisations, leading to the support of the Finnish working class being divided between the SDP and the SKP. It became the life's work of Väinö Tanner to re-establish the SDP as a serious, governing party. The result was a much more patriotic SDP which leaned less to the left and was relatively isolated from its Nordic sister parties, namely the Danish Social Democrats, the Norwegian Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party. President Pehr Evind Svinhufvud's animosity kept the SDP out of government during his presidency from 1931 to 1937. With the exception of a brief period in 1926, when Tanner formed a minority government, the SDP was excluded from cabinet participation until Kyösti Kallio was elected President in 1937. During World War II, the party played a central role in a series of broad coalition cabinets, symbolising national unity forged in response to the threat of the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939–1940. The SDP was a member of the Labour and Socialist International from 1923 to 1940. During the first few months of the Continuation War (1941–1944), the country, the parliament and the cabinet were divided on the question of whether Finland's army should stop at the old border and thereby demonstratively refrain from any attempt of conquests. However, the country's dangerous position called for national unity and the SDP's leadership chose to refrain from any visible protests. This decision is sometimes indicated as one of the main reasons behind the post-war division between the main left-wing parties (the SKP and the SDP) and the high percentage of SKP voters in the first elections after the Continuation War. After the war, the SKP was allowed to continue working and the main feature of Finnish political life during the 1944–1949 period was the competition between the SDP and the SKP, both for voters and for the control of the labour unions. During this time, the political field was divided roughly equally between the SDP, the SKP and the Agrarian League, each party commanding some 25% of the vote. In the post-war era, the SDP adopted a line of defending Finnish sovereignty and democracy in line with the Agrarian League and other bourgeois political parties, finally leading to the expulsion of the SKP from the cabinet in 1948. As a result, the Soviet Union remained more openly critical towards the SDP than the centre-right parties. Because of the SDP's anti-communism, the United States Central Intelligence Agency supported the party by means of funds laundered through Nordic sister parties or through organisations that bought luxury goods such as coffee abroad, then imported and sold them for a high profit as post-war rationing served to inflate prices. In the 1956 Finnish presidential election, the SDP candidate Karl-August Fagerholm lost by only one electoral vote to Urho Kekkonen. Fagerholm would act as Prime Minister in the Fagerholm II Cabinet (1956–1957) and the Fagerholm III Cabinet (1958–1959). The latter cabinet was forced to resign due to Soviet pressure, leading to a series of cabinets led by the Agrarian League. In 1958, due to the election of Väinö Tanner as party chairman, a faction of the SDP resigned and formed the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders (TPSL) around the former SDP chairman Emil Skog. The dispute was over several issues, namely whether the party should function as an interest group and whether it should co-operate with the anti-communists and right-wingers or with president Kekkonen, the Agrarian League and the SKP. During the 1960s, the TPSL dwindled, its members returning one by one to the SDP or joining the SKP, with Skog himself returning to the SDP in 1965. In the 1970 Finnish parliamentary election, the TPSL failed to gain any seats in parliament. Only in 1966 was the SDP able to satisfy the Soviet Union about its friendly attitude towards it and could thus return to the cabinet. Since then, the SDP has been represented in most Finnish cabinets, often cooperating with the centrist-agrarian Centre Party (formerly the Agrarian League), but sometimes with the liberal-conservative National Coalition Party. The SDP was in opposition from 1991 to 1995, when the main parties in the cabinet were the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party (NCP). The 1995 Finnish parliamentary election saw a landslide victory for the SDP, achieving their best results since World War II. The SDP rose to government from the opposition and leader Paavo Lipponen headed two consecutive cabinets from 1995 to 2003. During this time, the party adopted a pro-European stance and contributed actively to the Finnish membership in the European Union in 1995 in concert with the cabinet. In the 2003 Finnish parliamentary election, the SDP won 53 of the 200 seats, ending up a close second to the Centre Party. As a result, Lipponen became the Speaker of Parliament and the Centre Party leader Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the new Prime Minister, leading a coalition cabinet that included the SDP which got eight ministerial posts. After two months in office, Jäätteenmäki resigned due to a scandal relating to the Iraq leak and was replaced by Matti Vanhanen, another Centre Party representative, who commanded the Vanhanen I Cabinet. In the 2007 Finnish parliamentary election, the SDP gained the third-most votes. The chairman of the then-largest Centre Party, Matti Vanhanen, became the Prime Minister and formed a coalition cabinet consisting of the Green League, the NCP and the Swedish People's Party of Finland (SPP), leaving the SDP to the opposition. SDP leader Eero Heinäluoma did not immediately resign as party chairman, but he did announce his withdrawal from running for party chairman in the following party conference. He was replaced by Jutta Urpilainen. The SDP suffered further losses in the 2008 Finnish municipal elections and the 2009 European Parliament election. In the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, the SDP lost three more seats, ending up with 19.1 percent of the vote which corresponded to 42 seats, the party's worst-ever result. However, as the Centre Party lost even more voters, the SDP became the second-largest party in the country after the NCP, receiving only some 1,500 votes more than the Finns Party which came in third. After lengthy negotiations, a six-party coalition government, the Katainen Cabinet, was formed with the NCP and the SDP as the two main parties. SDP leader Jutta Urpilainen became the cabinet's Minister of Finance, with NCP chairman Jyrki Katainen serving as Prime Minister. In the 2014 party conference, Urpilainen was narrowly defeated by her challenger Antti Rinne in a 257 to 243 vote. Urpilainen subsequently stepped down as the Minister of Finance, passing the seat on to Rinne. In the 2015 Finnish parliamentary election, the drop of support continued for the SDP. The party lost eight more seats compared to the 2011 parliamentary election, ending up with 34 seats and 16.5 percent of the vote. With the repeat of the worst-ever result, the SDP dropped to being the fourth largest political party in Finland, receiving 50,110 fewer votes than the NCP, yet 237,000 more votes than the Green League. The SDP was left in the opposition and provided extensive criticism on the actions of the Sipilä Cabinet on matters such as alcohol policy, cuts to education spending and the so-called active model. On 22 June 2016, Maria Tolppanen, a Finns Party representative, joined the SDP. This increased the SDP's parliamentary seat number to 35. In the 2019 Finnish parliamentary election, the SDP gained 6 seats in comparison to the 2015 parliamentary election and became the largest party in the parliament. Based on the answers and initial talks with all parties, Rinne announced that he would negotiate forming a government with the Centre Party, the Green League, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party. The negotiations were ultimately successful and the Rinne Cabinet was formally inaugurated on 6 June 2019. On 3 December 2019, Rinne resigned as Prime Minister after the Centre Party had expressed a lack of confidence in Rinne for his handling of the events surrounding a postal strike in Finland. He was followed in the position by Sanna Marin, who was appointed as Prime Minister on 10 December 2019. Ideology The SDP is a centre-left social-democratic party. In its 2020 declaration of principles the party's ideals and priorities are: sustainable development, all-encompassing equality, peace, solidarity, freedom, co-operation, a clean and pristine environment together with democratic socialism. The SDP also embraces humanism's values as well as the Nordic model's accomplishments. In the 1900s, the party known as the Finnish Workers' Party was founded on the basis of social issues, class and socialism. SDP was the only political party in Finland for a long time. In 1907, the SDP was the strongest socialist party in Europe, as evidenced by the qualified majority in the Senate of Finland in 1917. At the beginning of the 20th century, the party received its main support from groups of the landless population and the rural population. In 1919, at the SDP's meeting, a split was made with the radical communists, as a result of which they broke away and founded the SSTP. As a result of the civil war and the October Revolution, the workers' movement became even more divided. Up until Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the party opposed on joining NATO and instead preferred to remain in the Partnership for Peace. The SDP is in favour of queer rights, the construction of nuclear power plants, the conservation of Swedish as one of Finland's two official languages and the increasing of funding given by the state to public schools and universities. The party is advocating for Finland to become coal-free by 2030. The SDP had advocated for policies preventing foreigners from outside the EU from working in Finland, but has since then softened its positions on immigration and has come to support certain immigration reforms. In its 2023 parliamentary election programme its self-declared goal was the increasing of work-based immigration coming to Finland as a way of responding to the country's labour shortage and low birth rate. In 2023, the SDP, along with the NCP, both criticised the Finns Party for their lack of willingness to the easing of work permit requirements to foreigners coming from outside the European Union. The party opposed certain economic reforms both in the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election and in the subsequent negotiations about the government programme. The SDP maintains a close relationship with trade unions. The party has opposed social reforms that would reduce the role of earnings-related unemployment benefits. The government pays the benefits to recipients through financial middlemen that are almost exclusively trade unions. The SDP also supports the separation of church and state. Controversies The SDP's politicians, among several other finnish political parties' members, have received criticism about their connections with the Russians for years by some of the media and academics, for example, SDP politicians Eero Heinäluoma, Paavo Lipponen, Erkki Tuomioja, Antton Rönnholm and Tarja Halonen have all had past connections to Russia. In 2005, according to Halonen, Russia's goals were: "...democracy, human rights and good governance." 9 years later, in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea, Halonen thought that Russia should not have been punished by sanctions or isolation. SDP's former party secretary Antton Rönnholm has also taken his part. Through his consulting firm's services offered to Gazprom, he sent an invoice for almost 200,000 euros to them for assisting in the South Stream gas pipeline project. More than half of Gazprom is owned by the Russian state, and it is partly used as a geopolitical tool in Europe and the rest of the world. In February 2022, politician Erkki Tuomioja published a work with the title "Finland and NATO – Why Finland should have the opportunity to apply for NATO membership and why that opportunity should not be used now". In his work Tuomioja estimated that Russia was viewed rather unanalytically. Also in February 2022, when Russia had already been pressuring Ukraine for a long time, the social democratic MEP Eero Heinäluoma and Mauri Pekkarinen from the Centre Party both said in a Finnish current affairs television programme that preparing for the Russian threat was part of the problem. According to Heinäluoma, placing defensive armaments in Russia's neighbouring countries was instead a threat to Russia. Paavo Lipponen has lobbied for and been a consultant for Russia's Nord Stream project since 2008. That year, Russia went to war against Georgia, which marked the start of Putin's foreign policy's aggresiveness. In a report of the European Parliament's special committee in 2022, former Social Democratic Party and Centre Party prime ministers Lipponen and Esko Aho were said to be among the European politicians that Russia and China had hijacked to promote their interests. Some current SDP politicians have therefore built their careers by appeasing Russia. However, in 2023, during the premiership of former Social Democratic Party chair Sanna Marin, Finland officially joined NATO. In September 2023, when Antti Lindtman got elected chair of the SDP, a scandal broke out due to him in his adolescent years, posing near four other naked young adults, nude, wearing a pointed hat in the style of a christmas elf, covered by a balaclava and with an airsoft gun in hand. While two others were doing a nazi salute in the same picture. Because of this, Lindtman was accused of being a nazi. He responded by stating that the image had been taken during his time in a high school film group by the name of "Team Paha, English: Team Bad" in a Pikkujoulu party while they were messing around and firmly denied the allegation of being a national socialist. The party secretary, Mikkel Näkkäläjärvi's, nomination and subsequent appointment to his role during the SDP's 2023 conference in Jyväskylä was criticised because of his criminal background. In 2011 he had driven a car while under the presence of alcohol, and was charged with a 30-day suspended sentence and an accompanying fine. Näkkäläjärvi had also broken into a retired old lady's summer cottage as a 15-year-old teenager with three others around the same age as him and participated in the killing and burning of a grown-up cat in a bonfire. Following this, he was charged with burglary, vandalism and animal cruelty as a young person. Näkkäläjärvi has apologised for all of his past misdeeds. Voter base The average age of an SDP member is 61.5 years. Over one half of all SDP voters are active members of the workforce. Symbols, logos and posters Prominent Social Democrats Leaders of the Social Democrats Election results Parliament of Finland Municipal European Parliament Presidential elections Indirect Direct See also Nordic model List of Social Democratic Party (Finland) breakaway parties Notes References External links Official website (in English)

Seattle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle

Seattle ( see-AT-əl) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2023 population of 755,078 it is the most populous city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The Seattle metropolitan area's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities. Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. A gateway for trade with East Asia, the Port of Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2021. The Seattle area has been inhabited by Native Americans (such as the Duwamish, who had at least 17 villages around Elliot Bay) for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, Oregon, on the schooner Exact at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay in 1852 and named "Seattle" in honor of Chief Seattle, a prominent 19th-century leader of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Seattle currently has high populations of Native Americans alongside Americans with strong Asian, African, European, and Scandinavian ancestry, and, as of 2015, hosts the fifth-largest LGBT community in the U.S. Logging was Seattle's first major industry, but by the late 19th century the city had become a commercial and shipbuilding center as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. The city grew after World War II, partly due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for its manufacturing of aircraft. Beginning in the 1980s, the Seattle area developed into a technology center; Microsoft established its headquarters in the region. In 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle, and Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Seattle's international airport. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city's population by almost 50,000 in the decade between 1990 and 2000. The culture of Seattle is heavily defined by its significant musical history. Between 1918 and 1951, nearly 24 jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene nurtured the early careers of Ernestine Anderson, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and others. In the late 20th and early 21st century, the city also was the origin of several rock bands, including Foo Fighters, Heart, and Jimi Hendrix, and the subgenre of grunge and its pioneering bands, including Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and others. History Archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the Duwamish people occupied at least 17 villages in the areas around Elliott Bay. The name for the modern city of Seattle in Lushootseed, dᶻidᶻəlal̓ič, meaning "little crossing-over place", comes from one of these villages, which was located at the present-day King Street Station. In May 1792, George Vancouver was the first European to visit the Seattle area during his 1791–1795 expedition for the Royal Navy, which sought to chart the Pacific Northwest for the British. 19th century In 1851, a large party of American pioneers led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River; they formally claimed it on September 14, 1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail on the schooner Exact from Portland, Oregon, stopping in Astoria, and landed at Alki Point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851. After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location, reestablished their old land claim and called it "New York", but renamed "New York Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning, roughly, "by and by" or "someday". For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers. David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement Seattle after Chief Seattle (Lushootseed: siʔaɫ, anglicized as "Seattle"), chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name "Seattle" appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. The Town of Seattle was disincorporated on January 18, 1867, and remained a mere precinct of King County until late 1869, when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated December 2, 1869, with a mayor–council government. The corporate seal of the City of Seattle carries the date "1869" and a likeness of Chief Seattle in left profile. That same year, Seattle acquired the epithet of the "Queen City", a designation officially changed in 1982 to the "Emerald City". Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, like many other cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure. The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, rode on the lumber industry. During this period the road now known as Yesler Way won the nickname "Skid Road", supposedly after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. The later dereliction of the area may be a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American lexicon as Skid Row. Like much of the U.S. West, Seattle experienced onflicts between labor and management and ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886. This violence originated with unemployed whites who were determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle; anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma. Seattle had achieved sufficient economic success when the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 destroyed the central business district. However, a far grander city center rapidly emerged in its place. Finance company Washington Mutual, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire. The Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard. The second and most dramatic boom resulted from the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893. In a short time, Seattle became a major transportation center. On July 14, 1897, the S.S. Portland docked with its famed "ton of gold", and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for the miners in Alaska and the Yukon. Few of those working men found lasting wealth. However, it was Seattle's business of clothing the miners and feeding them salmon that panned out in the long run. Along with Seattle, other cities like Everett, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bremerton, and Olympia, all in the Puget Sound region, became competitors for exchange, rather than mother lodes for extraction, of precious metals. 20th century The boom lasted into the early part of the 20th century, and funded many new Seattle companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer. Seattle brought in the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a system of parks and boulevards. The Gold Rush era culminated in the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of today's University of Washington campus. A shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century became massive during World War I, making Seattle somewhat of a company town. The subsequent retrenchment led to the Seattle General Strike of 1919, an early general strike in the country. A 1912 city development plan by Virgil Bogue went largely unused. Seattle was mildly prosperous in the 1920s but was particularly hard hit in the Great Depression, experiencing some of the country's harshest labor strife in that era. Violence during the Maritime Strike of 1934 cost Seattle much of its maritime traffic, which was rerouted to the Port of Los Angeles. The Great Depression in Seattle affected many minority groups, one being the Asian Pacific Americans; they were subject to racism, loss of property, and failed claims of unemployment due to citizenship status. Seattle was one of the major cities that benefited from programs such as the Works Progress Administration, CCC, Public Works Administration, and others. The workers, mostly men, built roads, parks, dams, schools, railroads, bridges, docks, and even historical and archival record sites and buildings. Seattle faced significant unemployment, loss of lumber and construction industries as Los Angeles prevailed as the bigger West Coast city. Seattle had building contracts that rivaled New York City and Chicago, but also lost to Los Angeles. Seattle's eastern farm land faded due to Oregon's and the Midwest's, forcing people into town. Hooverville arose during the Depression, leading to Seattle's growing homeless population. Stationed outside Seattle, the Hooverville housed thousands of men but very few children and no women. With work projects close to the city, Hooverville grew and the WPA settled into the city. A movement of women arose from Seattle during the Great Depression, fueled in part by Eleanor Roosevelt's 1933 book It's Up to the Women; women pushed for recognition, not just as housewives, but as the backbone to family. Using newspapers and journals Working Woman and The Woman Today, women pushed to be seen as equal and receive some recognition. The Great Depression did not impact the University of Washington negatively. As schools across Washington lost funding and attendance, the university actually prospered during the time period as they focused on growing their student enrollment. While Seattle public schools were influenced by Washington's superintendent Worth McClure, they still struggled to pay teachers and maintain attendance. Seattle was the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting vaudeville acts and silent movies. He went on to become one of America's greatest theater and movie tycoons. Scottish-born architect B. Marcus Priteca designed several theaters for Pantages in Seattle, which were later demolished or converted to other uses. Seattle's surviving Paramount Theatre, on which he collaborated, was not a Pantages theater. War work again brought local prosperity during World War II, centered on the production of Boeing aircraft. The war dispersed the city's numerous Japanese-American businessmen due to the Japanese American internment. After the World War II, however, the local economy dipped. It rose again with Boeing's growing dominance in the commercial airliner market. Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World's Fair, for which the Space Needle was built. Another major local economic downturn was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when Boeing was heavily affected by the oil crises, loss of government contracts, and costs and delays associated with the Boeing 747. Many people left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights." Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company separated its headquarters from its major production facilities; the headquarters were moved to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant and Everett wide-body plant. The company's credit union for employees, BECU, remains based in the Seattle area and has been open to all residents of Washington since 2002. On March 20, 1970, twenty-eight people were killed when the Ozark Hotel was burned by an unknown arsonist. The Wah Mee massacre in 1983 resulted in the killing of 13 people in an illegal gambling club in the Seattle Chinatown-International District. Prosperity began to return in the 1980s beginning with Microsoft's 1979 move from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to nearby Bellevue, Washington. Seattle and its suburbs became home to a number of technology companies, including Amazon, F5 Networks, RealNetworks, Nintendo of America, and T-Mobile. This success brought an influx of new residents with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000, and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country. Seattle in this period attracted attention as home to the companies opened operations in or around the city. In 1990, the Goodwill Games were held in the city. Three years later, in 1993, the APEC leaders was hosted in Seattle. The 1990s also witnessed a growing popularity in grunge music, a sound that was largely developed in Seattle's independent music scene. In 1993, the movie Sleepless in Seattle brought the city further national attention, as did the television sitcom Frasier. The dot-com boom caused a great frenzy among the technology companies in Seattle but the bubble ended in early 2001. In 1999, the World Trade Organization held its conference in Seattle, which was met with protest activity. The protests and police reactions to them largely overshadowed the conference itself. 21st century In 2001, the city was impacted by the Mardi Gras Riots and then by the Nisqually earthquake the following day. Another boom began as the city emerged from the Great Recession, commencing when Amazon moved its headquarters from North Beacon Hill to South Lake Union. The move initiated a historic construction boom which resulted in the completion of almost 10,000 apartments in Seattle in 2017, more than any previous year and nearly twice as many as were built in 2016. From 2010 to 2015, Seattle gained an average of 14,511 residents per year, with the growth strongly skewed toward the center of the city, and unemployment dropped from roughly 9 percent to 3.6 percent. The city has found itself "bursting at the seams", with over 45,000 households spending more than half their income on housing and at least 2,800 people homeless, and with the country's sixth-worst rush-hour traffic. Geography Topography Seattle is located between the saltwater Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, is part of Puget Sound, making the city an oceanic port. To the west, beyond Puget Sound, are the Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula; to the east, beyond Lake Washington and the Eastside suburbs, are Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Range. Lake Washington's waters flow to Puget Sound through the Lake Washington Ship Canal (consisting of two man-made canals, Lake Union, and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks at Salmon Bay, ending in Shilshole Bay on Puget Sound). The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. In modern times the surrounding area lends itself well to sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking year-round. The city is hilly in some places. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills; the lists vary but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The Wallingford, Delridge, Mount Baker, Seward Park, Washington Park, Broadmoor, Madrona, Phinney Ridge, Sunset Hill, Blue Ridge, Broadview, Laurelhurst, Hawthorne Hills, Maple Leaf, and Crown Hill neighborhoods are all located on hills. Many of the hilliest areas are near the city center, with Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Beacon Hill collectively constituting something of a ridge along an isthmus between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. The break in the ridge between First Hill and Beacon Hill is man-made, a result of two of the many regrading projects that reshaped the topography of the city center. The topography of the city center was also changed by the construction of a seawall and the artificial Harbor Island (completed 1909) at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway, the terminus of the Green River. The highest point within city limits is at High Point in West Seattle, which is located near 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle St. North of the city center, the Lake Washington Ship Canal connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. It incorporates four natural bodies of water: Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and Union Bay. Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), and caused one fatality. Other strong earthquakes occurred on January 26, 1700 (estimated at 9 magnitude), December 14, 1872 (7.3 or 7.4), April 13, 1949 (7.1), and April 29, 1965 (6.5). The 1965 quake caused three deaths in Seattle directly and one more by heart failure. Although the Seattle Fault passes just south of the city center, neither it nor the Cascadia subduction zone has caused an earthquake since the city's founding. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, especially in zones built on fill. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 142.5 square miles (369 km2), 84 square miles (220 km2) of which is land and 58.1 square miles (150 km2) is water (41% of the total area). Cityscape Climate According to the Köppen climate classification system, Seattle has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb), while under the Trewartha system, it is labeled an oceanic climate (Do). It has cool, wet winters and mild, relatively dry summers, covering characteristics of both climate types. The climate is sometimes characterized as a "modified Mediterranean" climate because it is cooler and wetter than a "true" Mediterranean climate, but shares the characteristic dry summer (which has a strong influence on the region's vegetation). Temperature extremes are moderated by the adjacent Puget Sound, greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. Thus extreme heat waves are rare in the Seattle area, as are very cold temperatures (below about 15 °F; −9 °C). The Seattle area is the cloudiest region of the Continental United States, due in part to frequent storms and lows moving in from the adjacent Pacific Ocean. Seattle is cloudy 201 days out of the year and partly cloudy 93 days. With many more "rain days" than other major American cities, Seattle has a well-earned reputation for frequent rain: In an average year, there are 150 days in which at least 0.01 inches (0.25 mm) of precipitation falls, more days than in nearly all U.S. cities east of the Rocky Mountains. However, because it often has merely a light drizzle falling from the sky for many days, Seattle actually receives significantly less rainfall (or other precipitation) overall than many other major U.S. cities like New York City, Miami, or Houston. Demographics According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey (ACS), the racial makeup of the city was 65.7% White Non-Hispanic, 16.9% Asian, 6.8% Black or African American, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 0.4% Native American, 0.9% Pacific Islander, 0.2% other races, and 5.6% two or more races. Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white. The 2010 census showed that Seattle was one of the whitest big cities in the country, although its proportion of white residents has been gradually declining. In 1960, whites constituted 91.6% of the city's population, while in 2010 they constituted 69.5%. According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. Those who spoke Asian languages other than Indo-European languages made up 10.2% of the population, Spanish was spoken by 4.5% of the population, speakers of other Indo-European languages made up 3.9%, and speakers of other languages made up 2.5%. Seattle's foreign-born population grew 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. The Chinese population in the Seattle area has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. The earliest Chinese-Americans that came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were almost entirely from Guangdong Province. The Seattle area is also home to a large Vietnamese population of more than 55,000 residents, as well as over 30,000 Somali immigrants. The Seattle-Tacoma area is also home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States, numbering about 19,000 Cambodian Americans, and one of the largest Samoan communities in the mainland U.S., with over 15,000 people having Samoan ancestry. Additionally, the Seattle area had the highest percentage of self-identified mixed-race people of any large metropolitan area in the United States, according to the 2000 United States Census Bureau. According to a 2012 HistoryLink study, Seattle's 98118 ZIP code (in the Columbia City neighborhood) was one of the most diverse ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the United States. According to the ACS 1-year estimates, in 2018, the median income of a city household was $93,481, and the median income for a family was $130,656. 11.0% of the population and 6.6% of families were below the poverty line. Of people living in poverty, 11.4% were under the age of 18 and 10.9% were 65 or older. According to a 2024 study by Henley & Partners, the city of Seattle has an estimated 54,200 millionaires and 11 billionaires. It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of the near-term results of which is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing. In recent years, the city has experienced steady population growth, and has been faced with the issue of accommodating more residents. In 2006, after growing by 4,000 citizens per year for the previous 16 years, regional planners expected the population of Seattle to grow by 200,000 people by 2040. However, former mayor Greg Nickels supported plans that would increase the population by 60%, or 350,000 people, by 2040 and worked on ways to accommodate this growth while keeping Seattle's single-family housing zoning laws. The Seattle City Council later voted to relax height limits on buildings in the greater part of Downtown, partly with the aim to increase residential density in the city center. As a sign of increasing downtown core growth, the Downtown population crested to over 60,000 in 2009, up 77% since 1990. In 2021 Seattle experienced its first population decline in 50 years. Seattle has a relatively high number of adults living alone. According to the 2000 U.S. Census interim measurements of 2004, Seattle has the fifth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8%. Sexual orientation and gender identity Seattle has a notably large lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. According to a 2006 study by UCLA, 12.9% of city residents polled identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This was the second-highest proportion of any major U.S. city, behind San Francisco. Greater Seattle also ranked second among major U.S. metropolitan areas, with 6.5% of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. According to 2012 estimates from the United States Census Bureau, Seattle has the highest percentage of same-sex households in the United States, at 2.6 percent, surpassing San Francisco (2.5 percent). The Capitol Hill district has historically been the center of LGBT culture in Seattle. Economy Seattle's economy is driven by a mix of older industrial companies and new-economy internet and technology companies, as well as service, design, and clean technology companies. The city's gross metropolitan product (GMP) was $231 billion in 2010, making it the 11th-largest metropolitan economy in the United States. The Port of Seattle, which also operates Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, is a major gateway for trade with Asia and cruises to Alaska. It also is the 8th-largest port in the United States when measured by container capacity. Its maritime cargo operations merged with the Port of Tacoma in 2015 to form the Northwest Seaport Alliance. Although it was impacted by the Great Recession, Seattle has retained a comparatively strong economy, and is noted for start-up businesses, especially in green building and clean technologies. In February 2010, the city government committed Seattle to become North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching net-zero per-capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Large companies continue to dominate the business landscape. Seven companies on Fortune 500's 2022 list of the United States' largest companies (based on total revenue) are headquartered in Seattle: Internet retailer Amazon (#2), coffee chain Starbucks (#120), freight forwarder Expeditors International of Washington (#225), department store Nordstrom (#245), forest products company Weyerhaeuser (#354), online travel company Expedia Group (#404), and real-estate tech company Zillow (#424) . Other Fortune 500 companies commonly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco (#11), the largest retail company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Microsoft (#14) is located in Redmond. Furthermore, Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer Paccar (#151). Other major companies headquartered in the area include Nintendo of America in Redmond, T-Mobile US in Bellevue, and Providence Health & Services (the state's largest health care system and fifth-largest employer) in Renton. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafés. Before moving its headquarters to Chicago and then ultimately Arlington County, Virginia, aerospace manufacturer Boeing (#60) was the largest company based in Seattle. Its largest division, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is still headquartered within the Puget Sound region. The company also has large aircraft manufacturing plants in Everett and Renton; it remains the largest private employer in the Seattle metropolitan area. In 2006 former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies Corixa (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), Trubion, and ZymoGenetics. Vulcan Inc., the holding company of billionaire Paul Allen, is behind most of the development projects in the region. While some see the new development as an economic boon, others have criticized Nickels and the Seattle City Council for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense. In 2005, Forbes ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels. Owing largely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, Seattle and Washington State have some of the highest minimum wages in the country, at $15 per hour for smaller businesses and $16 for the city's largest employers. Operating a hub at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Alaska Airlines maintains its headquarters in the city of SeaTac, next to the airport. Seattle is a hub for global health with the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH (global health organization), Infectious Disease Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In 2015, the Washington Global Health Alliance counted 168 global health organizations in Washington state. Many are headquartered in Seattle. Culture Many of Seattle's neighborhoods host one or more street fairs or parades. Performing arts Seattle has been a regional center for the performing arts for many years. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra has won many awards and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (opened in 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States. The city also boasts lauded summer and winter chamber music festivals organized by the Seattle Chamber Music Society. The 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre; Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of Actors' Equity contract). In addition, the 900-seat Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill hosts numerous cultural events, especially lectures and recitals. Between 1918 and 1951, there were nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs along Jackson Street, running from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Bumps Blackwell, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Early popular musical acts from the Seattle/Puget Sound area include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four, vocal group The Fleetwoods, 1960s garage rockers The Wailers and The Sonics, and instrumental surf group The Ventures, some of whom are still active. Seattle is considered the home of grunge music, having produced artists such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached international audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied artists as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, hot jazz musician Glenn Crytzer, hip hop artists Sir Mix-a-Lot, Macklemore, Blue Scholars, and Shabazz Palaces, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, classic rock staples Heart and Queensrÿche, and alternative rock bands such as Foo Fighters, Harvey Danger, The Presidents of the United States of America, The Posies, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Death Cab for Cutie, and Fleet Foxes. Rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, and Nikki Sixx spent their formative years in Seattle. The Seattle-based Sub Pop record company continues to be one of the world's best-known independent/alternative music labels. Over the years, a number of songs have been written about Seattle. Seattle annually sends a team of spoken word slammers to the National Poetry Slam and considers itself home to such performance poets as Buddy Wakefield, two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ; Anis Mojgani, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; and Danny Sherrard, 2007 National Poetry Slam Champ and 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam Champ. Seattle also hosted the 2001 national Poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival is a biennial poetry festival that (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry. The city also has movie houses showing both Hollywood productions and works by independent filmmakers. Among these, the Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films. Tourism Among Seattle's prominent annual fairs and festivals are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout July and August (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to the Seafair Cup hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, one of the largest Gay Pride festivals in the United States, and the art and music festival Bumbershoot, which programs music as well as other art and entertainment over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by 100,000 people annually, as are the Seattle Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. Other significant events include numerous Native American pow-wows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals (many associated with Festál at Seattle Center). There are other annual events, ranging from the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show; an anime convention, Sakura-Con; Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming convention; a two-day, 9,000-rider Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic; and specialized film festivals, such as the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival, the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, Children's Film Festival Seattle, Translation: the Seattle Transgender Film Festival, the Seattle Queer Film Festival, Seattle Latino Film Festival, and the Seattle Polish Film Festival. The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, the first public art museum in Washington. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened in 1933 and moved to their current downtown location in 1991 (expanded and reopened in 2007); since 1991, the 1933 building has been SAM's Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM). SAM also operates the Olympic Sculpture Park (opened in 2007) on the waterfront north of the downtown piers. The Frye Art Museum is a free museum on First Hill. Regional history collections are at the Log House Museum in Alki, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, the Museum of History and Industry, and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry collections are at the Center for Wooden Boats and the adjacent Northwest Seaport, and the Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include the National Nordic Museum, the Wing Luke Asian Museum, and the Northwest African American Museum. Seattle has artist-run galleries, including ten-year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery. The Seattle Great Wheel, one of the largest Ferris wheels in the US, opened in June 2012 as a new, permanent attraction on the city's waterfront, at Pier 57, next to Downtown Seattle. The city also has many community centers for recreation, including Rainier Beach, Van Asselt, Rainier, and Jefferson south of the Ship Canal and Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Loyal Heights north of the Canal, and Meadowbrook. Woodland Park Zoo opened as a private menagerie in 1889 but was sold to the city in 1899. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977 (undergoing a renovation in 2006). The Seattle Underground Tour is an exhibit of places that existed before the Great Fire. Since the mid-1990s, Seattle has experienced significant growth in the cruise industry, especially as a departure point for Alaska cruises. In 2008, a record total of 886,039 cruise passengers passed through the city, surpassing the number for Vancouver, BC, the other major departure point for Alaska cruises. Religion A 2024 Household Pulse Survey from the United States Census Bureau estimated that 64 percent of adults in the Seattle area never attend religious services or attend less than once a year, the highest percentage among large U.S. metropolitan areas. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the largest religious groupings are Christians (52%), followed by those of no religion (37%), Hindus (2%), Buddhists (2%), Jews (1%), Muslims (1%) and a variety of other religions have smaller followings. According to the same study by the Pew Research Center, about 34% of Seattleites are Protestant, and 15% are Roman Catholic. Meanwhile, 6% of the residents in Seattle call themselves agnostics, while 10% call themselves atheists. Sports Notes A Originally founded in 1974, the MLS version of the Sounders franchise was legally re-incorporated in 2007 and entered the league for the 2009 season. Seattle has four major men's professional sports teams: the National Football League (NFL)'s Seattle Seahawks, Major League Baseball (MLB)'s Seattle Mariners, the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Seattle Kraken, and Major League Soccer (MLS)'s Seattle Sounders FC. Other professional sports teams include the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)'s Seattle Storm, the National Women's Soccer League's Seattle Reign FC; and Major League Rugby (MLR)'s Seattle Seawolves. Seattle's professional sports history began at the start of the 20th century with the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. In 1969, Seattle was awarded a Major League Baseball franchise, the Seattle Pilots. Based at Sick's Stadium in Mount Baker, home to Seattle's former minor-league teams, the Pilots played in Seattle for one season before relocating to Milwaukee and becoming the Milwaukee Brewers. The city, alongside the county and state governments, sued the league and was offered a second expansion team, later named the Seattle Mariners, as settlement. The Mariners began play in 1977 at the multi-purpose Kingdome, where the team struggled for most of its time. Relative success in the mid-to-late 1990s saved the team from being relocated and allowed them to move to a purpose-built baseball stadium, T-Mobile Park (formerly Safeco Field), in 1999. The Mariners have never reached a World Series and only appeared in the MLB playoffs five times, mostly between 1995 and 2001, but had Hall of Fame players and candidates like Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, and Alex Rodriguez. The team tied the all-time MLB single regular season wins record in 2001 with 116 wins. From 2001 to 2022, the Mariners failed to qualify for the playoffs—the longest active postseason drought in major North American sports, at 20 seasons. The Seattle Seahawks entered the National Football League in 1976 as an expansion team and have advanced to the Super Bowl three times: 2005, 2013 and 2014. The team played in the Kingdome until it was imploded in 2000 and moved into Qwest Field (now Lumen Field) at the same site in 2003. The Seahawks lost Super Bowl XL in 2005 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Detroit, but won Super Bowl XLVIII in 2013 by defeating the Denver Broncos 43–8 at MetLife Stadium. The team advanced to the Super Bowl the following year, but lost to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX on a last-minute play. Seahawks fans have set stadium noise records on several occasions and are collectively known as the "12th Man". Seattle Sounders FC has played in Major League Soccer since 2009, as the latest continuation of the original 1974 Sounders team of the North American Soccer League after an incarnation in the lower divisions of American soccer. Sharing Lumen Field with the Seahawks, the team set various attendance records in its first few MLS seasons, averaging over 43,000 per match and placing themselves among the top 30 teams internationally. The Sounders have won the MLS Supporters' Shield in 2014 and the U.S. Open Cup on four occasions: 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014. The Sounders won the first of their two MLS Cup titles in 2016, defeating Toronto FC 5–4 in a penalty shootout in Toronto, before finishing as runners-up in a rematch against Toronto in MLS Cup 2017. In 2019 the Sounders made their first-ever home-field appearance in MLS Cup, once again against Toronto FC, and won the game 3–1 to earn their second MLS Cup title in front of a club-record attendance of 69,274. The stadium also hosted the second leg of the 2022 CONCACAF Champions League Final, played in front of 68,741 to break the tournament attendance record. The Sounders became the first MLS team to win a continental title since 2000 and the first to win the modern Champions League. Seattle's Major League Rugby team, the Seattle Seawolves, play in nearby Tukwila at Starfire Sports Complex, a small stadium that is also used by the Sounders for their U.S. Open Cup matches. The team began play in 2018 and won the league's inaugural championship. They successfully defended their title in the 2019 season and finished as runners-up in the 2022 championship game. From 1967 to 2008, Seattle was home to the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A frequent playoff participant, the Sonics were the 1978–79 NBA champions, and also contended for the championship in 1978 and 1996. Following a team sale in 2006, a failed effort to replace the aging KeyArena, and settlement of a lawsuit to hold the team to the final two years of its lease with the city, the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Oklahoma City Thunder ahead of the 2008–09 season. An effort in 2013 to purchase the Sacramento Kings franchise and relocate it to Seattle as a resurrected Sonics squad was denied by the NBA board of governors. The Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association have also played their games at KeyArena (now Climate Pledge Arena) since their foundation in 2000. The WNBA granted Seattle their expansion side following the popularity of the recently folded Seattle Reign, a women's professional basketball team that played from 1996 to 1998 in the rival American Basketball League. The Storm began as a sister team to the now-defunct Sonics of the NBA, but sold to separate Seattle-based ownership in 2006. Tied for the league record, the Storm have claimed the WNBA championship on four occasions, winning in 2004, 2010, 2018, and 2020. The team also won the first-ever WNBA Commissioner's Cup in 2021. The Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team has represented Seattle in the Canadian major-junior Western Hockey League since 1977. Originally playing in Mercer Arena and the Seattle Center Coliseum (which had hosted previous minor-league hockey teams), the Thunderbirds have been based at the ShoWare Center in the suburb of Kent since 2007, and have won one WHL championship in 2017. In 1974, Seattle was awarded a conditional expansion franchise in the National Hockey League; however, this opportunity did not come to fruition. In 2018, a new Seattle-based group successfully applied for an expansion team in the NHL, which was named the Seattle Kraken and began play in 2021. The SuperSonics' former home arena, KeyArena (now Climate Pledge Arena), underwent major renovations from 2018 to 2021 to accommodate the new NHL team. The NHL ownership group reached its goal of 10,000 deposits within 12 minutes of opening a ticket drive, which later increased to 25,000 in 75 minutes. Seattle Reign FC, a founding member of the National Women's Soccer League, was founded in 2012, holding their home games in Seattle from 2014 to 2018 and again since 2022. The team name was chosen to honor the defunct women's basketball team of the same name. The club played at Starfire Sports Complex in nearby Tukwila for the league's inaugural 2013 season before moving to Seattle Center's Memorial Stadium in 2014. Under new management, the team moved to Tacoma's Cheney Stadium in 2019, before moving to Seattle's Lumen Field in 2022. In 2020, OL Groupe, the parent company of French clubs Olympique Lyonnais and Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, became the team's majority owner and rebranded the club as OL Reign. The Seattle Reign name was restored in 2024. Seattle has also been home to various minor-league professional teams, of which currently Ballard FC and West Seattle Junction FC of USL League 2 in soccer remain. Representing the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard, Ballard FC was founded in 2022 as an independent, semi-professional soccer team in the fourth-division USL League 2. The team is owned by a group led by former Sounders player Lamar Neagle and won its first national title in 2023. Ballard FC's primary home is the 1,000-seat Interbay Soccer Stadium (also home to Seattle Pacific University's and Ballard High School's soccer teams), but during that field's renovations in the 2024 season, Ballard will play out of Memorial Stadium at the Seattle Center. Starting in 2024, Ballard FC's division will be joined by a new cross-town rival, West Seattle Junction FC representing the neighborhood of West Seattle. The short-lived Seattle Sea Dragons, originally the Dragons, of the XFL played at Lumen Field in the league's inaugural season in 2020 prior to its suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Sea Dragons returned alongside the XFL in 2023 after the league's re-launch under new ownership. The team folded prior to the 2024 season during the XFL's merger with the United States Football League to form the United Football League. Seattle also boasts two collegiate sports teams based at the University of Washington and Seattle University, both competing in NCAA Division I for various sports. The University of Washington's athletic program, nicknamed the Huskies, competes in the Pac-12 Conference, and Seattle University's athletic program, nicknamed the Redhawks, mostly competes in the Western Athletic Conference. The Huskies teams use several facilities, including the 70,000-seat Husky Stadium for football and the Hec Edmundson Pavilion for basketball and volleyball. The two schools have basketball and soccer teams that compete against each other in non-conference games and have formed a local rivalry due to their sporting success. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has been held in Seattle three times, once at the Kingdome in 1979, and twice at T-Mobile Park in 2001 and 2023. The NBA All-Star Game was also held in Seattle twice: the first in 1974 at the Seattle Center Coliseum and the second in 1987 at the Kingdome. Lumen Field hosted MLS Cup 2009, played between Real Salt Lake and the Los Angeles Galaxy, as a neutral site in front of 46,011 spectators. Seattle will be one of eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with matches played at Lumen Field and training facilities at Longacres in Renton, Washington. Parks and recreation Seattle's mild, temperate marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motorboating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. In town, many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of 535-acre (2.2 km2) Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, along the shoreline of Lake Washington at Seward Park, along Alki Beach in West Seattle, or along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Gas Works Park features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956. Located across Lake Union from downtown, the park provides panoramic views of the Seattle skyline. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. Government and politics Seattle is a charter city, with a mayor–council form of government. From 1911 to 2013, Seattle's nine city councillors were elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. For the 2015 election, this changed to a hybrid system of seven district members and two at-large members as a result of a ballot measure passed on November 5, 2013. The only other elected offices are the city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city offices are officially non-partisan. Like some other parts of the United States, government and laws are also run by a series of ballot initiatives (allowing citizens to pass or reject laws), referendums (allowing citizens to approve or reject legislation already passed), and propositions (allowing specific government agencies to propose new laws or tax increases directly to the people). Seattle is widely considered one of the most socially liberal cities in the United States. In the 2012 U.S. general election, a majority of Seattleites voted to approve Referendum 74 and legalize gay marriage in Washington state. In the same election, an overwhelming majority of Seattleites also voted to approve the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis in the state. Like much of the Pacific Northwest (which has the lowest rate of church attendance in the United States and consistently reports the highest percentage of atheism), church attendance, religious belief, and political influence of religious leaders are much lower than in other parts of America. Seattle's political culture is very liberal and progressive for the United States, with over 80% of the population voting for the Democratic Party. All precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. In partisan elections for the Washington State Legislature and United States Congress, nearly all elections are won by Democrats. Although local elections are nonpartisan, most of the city's elected officials are known to be Democrats, the most notable exception being Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison. In 1926, Seattle became the first major American city to elect a female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes. It has also elected an openly gay mayor, Ed Murray, and a third-party socialist councillor, Kshama Sawant. For the first time in United States history, an openly gay black woman was elected to public office when Sherry Harris was elected as a Seattle city councilor in 1991. In 2015, the majority of the city council was female. Bruce Harrell was elected as mayor in the 2021 mayoral election, succeeding Jenny Durkan, and took office on January 1, 2022. The mayor's office also includes three deputy mayors, appointed to advise the mayor on policies. In 2023, the city council voted to ban caste discrimination as part of the city's anti-discrimination laws. The ban is the first in the United States. Seattle lies within four districts on the King County Council: the 1st district includes the northeastern corner of the city; the 2nd district generally covers areas east of Interstate 5 and south of Northeast 65th Street; the 4th district consists of the northwestern neighborhoods of Ballard, Fremont, Magnolia, and Queen Anne; and the 8th district includes Downtown Seattle, First Hill, SODO, and West Seattle. At the state level, Seattle is divided into six districts that each have one state senator and two state representatives. Federally, Seattle is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in 7th congressional district, represented by Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. She succeeded 28-year incumbent and fellow Democrat Jim McDermott. Part of southeastern Seattle is in the 9th congressional district, represented by Democrat Adam Smith since 1997. The border between the two districts follows the Tukwila city limits around Boeing Field, Interstate 5, South Dearborn Street, 4th Avenue South, James Street, Madison Street, East Union Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and East Yesler Way. Education Of the city's population over the age of 25, 53.8% (vs. a national average of 27.4%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 91.9% (vs. 84.5% nationally) have a high school diploma or equivalent. A 2008 United States Census Bureau survey showed that Seattle had the highest percentage of college and university graduates of any major U.S. city. The city was listed as the most literate of the country's 69 largest cities in 2005 and 2006, the second most literate in 2007 and the most literate in 2008 in studies conducted by Central Connecticut State University. Seattle Public Schools is the school district for the vast majority of the city. That school district desegregated without a court order but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a somewhat ethnically divided city (the south part of town having more ethnic minorities than the north). In 2007, Seattle's racial tie-breaking system was struck down by the United States Supreme Court, but the ruling left the door open for desegregation formulae based on other indicators (e.g., income or socioeconomic class). A very small portion of the city is within the Highline School District. The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: Five of the private high schools are Catholic, one is Lutheran, and six are secular. Seattle is home to the University of Washington and its professional and continuing education unit, the University of Washington Educational Outreach. In 2017, U.S. News & World Report ranked the University of Washington eleventh in the world. The UW receives more federal research and development funding than any public institution. Over the last 10 years, it has also produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other U.S. university. Seattle also has a number of smaller private universities, including Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University, the former a Jesuit Catholic institution, the latter a Free Methodist institution. The Seattle Colleges District operates three colleges: North Seattle College, Seattle Central College, and South Seattle College. Universities aimed at the working adult are the City University and Antioch University. Seminaries include Western Seminary and a number of arts colleges, such as Cornish College of the Arts, Pratt Fine Arts Center. In 2001, Time magazine selected Seattle Central Community College as community college of the year, saying that the school "pushes diverse students to work together in small teams." Media As of 2019, Seattle has one major daily newspaper, The Seattle Times. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, known as the P-I, published a daily newspaper from 1863 to March 17, 2009, before switching to a strictly on-line publication. There is also the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, and the University of Washington publishes The Daily, a student-run publication, when school is in session. The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly and The Stranger; both consider themselves "alternative" papers. The weekly LGBT newspaper is the Seattle Gay News. Real Change is a weekly street newspaper that is sold mainly by homeless persons as an alternative to panhandling. There are also several ethnic newspapers, including The Facts, Northwest Asian Weekly and the International Examiner as well as numerous neighborhood newspapers. Seattle is also well served by television and radio, with all major U.S. networks represented, along with at least five other English-language stations and two Spanish-language stations. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 (CBC) from Vancouver, British Columbia. Non-commercial radio stations include NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KNKX 88.5 (Tacoma), as well as classical music station KING-FM 98.1. Other non-commercial stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with the UW), community radio KBCS-FM 91.3 (affiliated with Bellevue College), and high school radio KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an electronic dance music radio format, is owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are available through Internet radio, with KEXP in particular being a pioneer of Internet radio. Seattle also has numerous commercial radio stations. In a March 2012 report by the consumer research firm Arbitron, the top FM stations were KRWM (adult contemporary format), KIRO-FM (news/talk), and KISW (active rock) while the top AM stations were KOMO (all news), KJR (AM) (all sports), KIRO (AM) (all sports). Infrastructure Health systems The University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's leading institutions in medical research, earning special merits for programs in neurology and neurosurgery. The university-run UW Medicine system encompasses several major local hospitals, including Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital and the only Level I trauma hospital for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Harborview and two other major hospitals—Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center—are located on First Hill, which is nicknamed "Pill Hill" for its concentration of medical facilities. Located in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, Seattle Children's, formerly Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the pediatric referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has a campus in the Eastlake neighborhood. The University District is home to the University of Washington Medical Center which, along with Harborview, is operated by the University of Washington. Seattle is also served by a Veterans Affairs hospital on Beacon Hill, a third campus of Swedish in Ballard, and UW Medical Center - Northwest near Northgate Station. Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970. In 1974, a 60 Minutes story on the success of the then four-year-old Medic One paramedic system called Seattle "the best place in the world to have a heart attack." The city also has several pharmacy chains; these include Bartell Drugs, which was family-run in Seattle until its acquisition by Rite Aid in 2020. As of 2024, Seattle lacks a 24-hour retail pharmacy due to the closure of locations across several chains. Transportation The first streetcars appeared in 1889 and were instrumental in the creation of a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of their lines. The advent of the automobile began the dismantling of rail in Seattle. Tacoma–Seattle railway service ended in 1929 and the Everett–Seattle service came to an end in 1939, replaced by automobiles running on the recently developed highway system. Rails on city streets were paved over or removed, and the opening of the Seattle trolleybus system brought the end of streetcars in Seattle in 1941. This left an extensive network of privately owned buses (later public) as the only mass transit within the city and throughout the region. King County Metro provides regular bus service in the city and county, and the South Lake Union Streetcar line and the First Hill Streetcar line. Seattle is one of the few cities in North America whose bus fleet includes electric trolleybuses. Sound Transit provides an express bus service within the metropolitan area, two Sounder commuter rail lines between the suburbs and downtown, and its 1 Line light rail line between Northgate and Angle Lake. Washington State Ferries, which manages the largest network of ferries in the United States and third-largest in the world, connects Seattle to Bainbridge and Vashon Islands in Puget Sound and to Bremerton and Southworth on the Kitsap Peninsula. King Street Station in Pioneer Square serves Amtrak intercity trains and Sounder commuter trains, and is located adjacent to the International District/Chinatown light rail station. According to the 2007 American Community Survey, 18.6% of Seattle residents used one of the three public transit systems that serve the city, giving it the highest transit ridership of all major cities without heavy or light rail prior to the completion of Sound Transit's 1 Line. The city has also been described by Bert Sperling as the fourth most walkable U.S. city and by Walk Score as the sixth most walkable of the fifty largest U.S. cities. Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, locally known as Sea-Tac Airport and located just south in the neighboring city of SeaTac, is operated by the Port of Seattle and provides commercial air service to destinations throughout the world. Closer to downtown, Boeing Field is used for general aviation, cargo flights, and testing/delivery of Boeing airliners. A secondary passenger airport, Paine Field, opened in 2019 and is located in Everett, 25 miles (40 km) north of Seattle. It is predominantly used by Boeing and their large assembly plant located nearby. The main mode of transportation, however, is the street system, which is laid out in a cardinal directions grid pattern, except in the central business district where early city leaders Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting the plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North. Only two roads, Interstate 5 and State Route 99 (both limited-access highways) run uninterrupted through the city from north to south. From 1953 to 2019, State Route 99 ran through downtown Seattle on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway on the waterfront. However, due to damage sustained during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake the viaduct was replaced by a tunnel. The 2-mile (3.2 km) Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel was originally scheduled to be completed in December 2015 at a cost of US$4.25 billion. The world's largest tunnel boring machine, named "Bertha", was commissioned for the project, measuring 57 feet (17 m) in diameter. The tunnel's opening was delayed to February 2019 due to issues with the machine, which included a two-year halt in excavation. Seattle has the 8th-worst traffic congestion of all American cities, and is 10th among all North American cities according to Inrix. The city has started moving away from the automobile and toward mass transit. From 2004 to 2009, the annual number of unlinked public transportation trips increased by approximately 21%. In 2006, voters in King County passed the Transit Now proposition, which increased bus service hours on high ridership routes and paid for five limited-stop bus lines called RapidRide. After rejecting a roads and transit measure in 2007, Seattle-area voters passed a transit only measure in 2008 to increase ST Express bus service, extend the Link light rail system, and expand and improve Sounder commuter rail service. A light rail line (now the 1 Line) from downtown heading south to Sea-Tac Airport began service in 2009, giving the city its first rapid transit line with intermediate stations within the city limits. An extension north to the University of Washington opened on March 19, 2016, followed by the Northgate extension in October 2021. Further extensions are planned to reach Lynnwood to the north, Federal Way to the south, and Bellevue and Redmond to the east by 2026. Voters in the Puget Sound region approved an additional tax increase, part of the Sound Transit 3 package, in November 2016 to expand light rail to West Seattle and Ballard as well as Tacoma, Everett, and Issaquah. Utilities Water and electric power are municipal services, provided by Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light, respectively. Other utility companies serving Seattle include Puget Sound Energy (natural gas, electricity), Seattle Steam Company (steam), Waste Management, Inc and Recology CleanScapes (curbside recycling, composting, and solid waste removal), CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Wave Broadband, and Comcast (telecommunications and television). About 90% of Seattle's electricity is produced using hydropower. Less than 2% of electricity is produced using fossil fuels. Seattle Public Utilities manages two tap water supply systems on the Cedar River and Tolt River. These systems are fed by melted snowpack in the Cascade Mountains over the autumn and winter that fill reservoirs as they melt. The city's wastewater system includes 1,422 miles (2,288 km) of sewers that reach treatment plants that discharge into Puget Sound; a 485-mile (781 km) network of separate tunnels for stormwater serve other treatment facilities. Older areas of the city have a combined sewer system that dumps stormwater and untreated wastewater into Puget Sound during overflow events. Crime In 2023, Seattle had 5000 violent crimes, and from 2013 to 2018 there was a slow increase in crimes, however it dipped in 2020, before spiking up again in 2021 and 2022. As of 2023 the city has a violent crime rate of 683 per 100,000 people, and 5,174 property crimes per 100,000 people. International relations Seattle has the following sister cities: See also List of people from Seattle List of television shows set in Seattle USS Seattle—two ships Notes References Bibliography Jones, Nard (1972). Seattle. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-01875-3. Morgan, Murray (1982) [1951]. Skid Road: an Informal Portrait of Seattle (revised and updated, first illustrated ed.). Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-95846-0. Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, ed. (1998) [1994]. Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-97366-1. Sale, Roger (1976). Seattle: Past to Present. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-95615-2. Speidel, William C. (1978). Doc Maynard: The Man Who Invented Seattle. Seattle: Nettle Creek Publishing Company. pp. 196–197, 200. ISBN 978-0-914890-02-7. Speidel, William C. (1967). Sons of the profits; or, There's no business like grow business: the Seattle story, 1851–1901. Seattle: Nettle Creek Publishing Company. pp. 196–197, 200. ISBN 978-0-914890-00-3. Further reading Klingle, Matthew (2007). Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11641-0. MacGibbon, Elma (1904). "Seattle, the city of destiny" (DJVU). Leaves of knowledge. Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection. Shaw & Borden. OCLC 61326250. Pierce, J. Kingston (2003). Eccentric Seattle: Pillars and Pariahs Who Made the City Not Such a Boring Place After All. Pullman, Washington: Washington State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87422-269-2. Sanders, Jeffrey Craig. Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia (University of Pittsburgh Press; 2010) 288 pages; the rise of environmental activism External links Official website Historylink.org, history of Seattle and Washington Seattle Photographs from the University of Washington Digital Collections Seattle Historic Photograph Collection from the Seattle Public Library Archived October 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project Seattle, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary

Portland,_Oregon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon

Portland ( PORT-lənd) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated in the northwestern area of the state at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the county seat of Multnomah County, Oregon's most populous county. As of 2020, Portland's population was 652,503, making it the 26th-most populous city in the United States, the sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest, after Seattle. Approximately 2.5 million people live in the Portland metropolitan area, making it the 25th-most populous in the United States. About half of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metro area. Named after Portland, Maine, which is itself named after the English Isle of Portland, the Oregon settlement began to be populated in the 1840s, near the end of the Oregon Trail. Its water access provided convenient transportation of goods, and the timber industry was a major force in the city's early economy. At the turn of the 20th century, the city had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, a hub for organized crime and racketeering. After the city's economy experienced an industrial boom during World War II, its hard-edged reputation began to dissipate. Beginning in the 1960s, it became noted for its growing liberal and progressive political values, earning it a reputation as a bastion of counterculture. The city operates with a commission-based government, guided by a mayor and four commissioners, as well as Metro, the only directly elected metropolitan planning organization in the United States. Its climate is marked by warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. This climate is ideal for growing roses, and Portland has been called the "City of Roses" for over a century. History Pre-settlement history During the prehistoric period, the land that would become Portland was flooded after the collapse of glacial dams from Lake Missoula, in what would later become Montana. These massive floods occurred during the last ice age and filled the Willamette Valley with 300 to 400 feet (91 to 122 m) of water. Before American settlers began arriving in the 1800s, the land was inhabited for many centuries by two bands of indigenous Chinook people – the Multnomah and the Clackamas. The Chinook people occupying the land were first documented in 1805 by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Before its European settlement, the Portland Basin of the lower Columbia River and Willamette River valleys had been one of the most densely populated regions on the Pacific Coast. Establishment Large numbers of pioneer settlers began arriving in the Willamette Valley in the 1840s via the Oregon Trail with many arriving in nearby Oregon City. A new settlement then emerged ten miles from the mouth of the Willamette River, roughly halfway between Oregon City and Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver. This community was initially referred to as "Stumptown" and "The Clearing" because of the many trees cut down to allow for its growth. In 1843 William Overton saw potential in the new settlement but lacked the funds to file an official land claim. For 25 cents, Overton agreed to share half of the 640-acre (2.6 km2) site with Asa Lovejoy of Boston. In 1844, Overton sold his remaining half of the claim to Francis W. Pettygrove of Portland, Maine. Both Pettygrove and Lovejoy wished to rename "The Clearing" after their respective hometowns (Lovejoy's being Boston, and Pettygrove's, Portland). This controversy was settled with a coin toss that Pettygrove won in a series of two out of three tosses, thereby providing Portland with its namesake. The coin used for this decision, now known as the Portland Penny, is on display in the headquarters of the Oregon Historical Society. At the time of its incorporation on February 8, 1851, Portland had over 800 inhabitants, a steam sawmill, a log cabin hotel, and a newspaper, the Weekly Oregonian. A major fire swept through downtown in August 1873, destroying twenty blocks on the west side of the Willamette along Yamhill and Morrison Streets, and causing $1.3 million in damage, roughly equivalent to $33.1 million today. By 1879, the population had grown to 17,500 and by 1890 it had grown to 46,385. In 1888, the first steel bridge on the West Coast was opened in Portland, the predecessor of the 1912 namesake Steel Bridge that survives today. In 1889, Henry Pittock's wife, Georgiana, established the Portland Rose Society. The movement to make Portland a "Rose City" started as the city was preparing for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. Portland's access to the Pacific Ocean via the Willamette and Columbia rivers, as well as its easy access to the agricultural Tualatin Valley via the "Great Plank Road" (the route of current-day U.S. Route 26), provided the pioneer city with an advantage over other nearby ports, and it grew very quickly. Portland remained the major port in the Pacific Northwest for much of the 19th century, until the 1890s, when Seattle's deepwater harbor was connected to the rest of the mainland by rail, affording an inland route without the treacherous navigation of the Columbia River. The city had its own Japantown, for one, and the lumber industry also became a prominent economic presence, due to the area's large population of Douglas fir, western hemlock, red cedar, and big leaf maple trees. Portland developed a reputation early in its history as a hard-edged and gritty port town. Some historians have described the city's early establishment as being a "scion of New England; an ends-of-the-earth home for the exiled spawn of the eastern established elite." In 1889, The Oregonian called Portland "the most filthy city in the Northern States", due to the unsanitary sewers and gutters, and, at the turn of the 20th century, it was considered one of the most dangerous port cities in the world. The city housed a large number of saloons, bordellos, gambling dens, and boarding houses which were populated with miners after the California Gold Rush, as well as the multitude of sailors passing through the port. By the early 20th century, the city had lost its reputation as a "sober frontier city" and garnered a reputation for being violent and dangerous. 20th-century development Between 1900 and 1930, the city's population tripled from nearly 100,000 to 301,815. During World War II, it housed an "assembly center" from which up to 3,676 people of Japanese descent were dispatched to internment camps in the heartland. It was the first American city to have residents report thus, and the Pacific International Livestock Exposition operated from May through September 10, 1942, processing people from the city, northern Oregon, and central Washington. General John DeWitt called the city the first "Jap-free city on the West Coast." At the same time, Portland became a notorious hub for underground criminal activity and organized crime in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1957, Life magazine published an article detailing the city's history of government corruption and crime, specifically its gambling rackets and illegal nightclubs. The article, which focused on crime boss Jim Elkins, became the basis of a fictionalized film titled Portland Exposé (1957). In spite of the city's seedier undercurrent of criminal activity, Portland enjoyed an economic and industrial surge during World War II. Ship builder Henry J. Kaiser had been awarded contracts to build Liberty ships and aircraft carrier escorts, and chose sites in Portland and Vancouver, Washington, for work yards. During this time, Portland's population rose by over 150,000, largely attributed to recruited laborers. During the 1960s, an influx of hippie subculture began to take root in the city in the wake of San Francisco's burgeoning countercultural scene. The city's Crystal Ballroom became a hub for the city's psychedelic culture, while food cooperatives and listener-funded media and radio stations were established. A large social activist presence evolved during this time as well, specifically concerning Native American rights, environmentalist causes, and gay rights. By the 1970s, Portland had well established itself as a progressive city, and experienced an economic boom for the majority of the decade; however, the slowing of the housing market in 1979 caused demand for the city and state timber industries to drop significantly. Since 1990 In the 1990s, the technology industry began to emerge in Portland, specifically with the establishment of companies such as Intel, which brought more than US$10 billion in investments in 1995 alone. In the late 1990s, the Portland area was rated the fourth-least affordable place in the United States to purchase a new home. After 2000, Portland experienced significant growth, with a population rise of over 90,000 between the years 2000 and 2014. The city's increasing reputation for culture established it as a popular city for young people, and it was second only to Louisville, Kentucky, as one of the cities to attract and retain the highest number of college-educated people in the United States. Between 2001 and 2012, Portland's gross domestic product per person grew by fifty percent, more than any other city in the country. The city acquired a diverse range of nicknames throughout its history, though it is most often called "Rose City" or "The City of Roses" (unofficial nickname since 1888, official since 2003). Another widely used nickname by local residents in everyday speech is "PDX", the airport code for Portland International Airport. Other nicknames include Bridgetown, Stumptown, Rip City, Soccer City, P-Town, Portlandia, and the more antiquated Little Beirut. 2020 George Floyd protests From May 28, 2020, until spring 2021, there were daily protests about the murder of George Floyd by police, and racial injustice. There were instances of looting, vandalism, and police actions causing injuries. One protestor was killed by an opposing one. Local businesses reported losses totaling millions of dollars as the result of vandalism and looting, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Some protests caused injury to protesters and police. In July, federal officers were deployed to safeguard federal property; their presence and tactics were criticized by Oregon officials, who demanded they leave, while lawsuits were filed against local and federal law enforcement alleging wrongful actions by them. On May 25, 2021, a protest to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Floyd's murder caused property damage, and was followed by a number of arrests. Geography Geology Portland lies on top of a dormant volcanic field known as the Boring Lava Field, named after the nearby bedroom community of Boring. The Boring Lava Field has at least 32 cinder cones such as Mount Tabor, and its center lies in southeast Portland. Mount St. Helens, a highly active volcano 50 miles (80 km) northeast of the city in Washington state, is easily visible on clear days and is close enough to have dusted the city with volcanic ash after its eruption on May 18, 1980. The rocks of the Portland area range in age from late Eocene to more recent eras. Multiple shallow, active fault lines traverse the Portland metropolitan area. Among them are the Portland Hills Fault on the city's west side, and the East Bank Fault on the east side. According to a 2017 survey, several of these faults were characterized as "probably more of a hazard" than the Cascadia subduction zone due to their proximities to population centers, with the potential of producing magnitude 7 earthquakes. Notable earthquakes that have impacted the Portland area in recent history include the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake in 2001, and a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 25, 1993. Per a 2014 report, over 7,000 locations within the Portland area are at high risk for landslides and soil liquefaction in the event of a major earthquake, including much of the city's west side (such as Washington Park) and sections of Clackamas County. Topography Portland is 60 miles (97 km) east of the Pacific Ocean at the northern end of Oregon's most populated region, the Willamette Valley. Downtown Portland straddles the banks of the Willamette River, which flows north through the city center and separates the city's east and west neighborhoods. Less than 10 miles (16 km) from downtown, the Willamette River flows into the Columbia River, the fourth-largest river in the United States, which divides Oregon from Washington state. Portland is approximately 100 miles (160 km) upriver from the Pacific Ocean on the Columbia. Though much of downtown Portland is relatively flat, the foothills of the Tualatin Mountains, more commonly referred to locally as the "West Hills", pierce through the northwest and southwest reaches of the city. Council Crest Park at 1,073 feet (327 m) is often quoted as the highest point in Portland; however, the highest point in Portland is on a section of NW Skyline Blvd just north of Willamette Stone Heritage site. The highest point east of the river is Mt. Tabor, an extinct volcanic cinder cone, which rises to 636 feet (194 m). Nearby Powell Butte and Rocky Butte rise to 614 feet (187 m) and 612 feet (187 m), respectively. To the west of the Tualatin Mountains lies the Oregon Coast Range, and to the east lies the actively volcanic Cascade Range. On clear days, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens dominate the horizon, while Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier can also be seen in the distance. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 145.09 square miles (375.78 km2), of which 133.43 square miles (345.58 km2) is land and 11.66 square miles (30.20 km2) is water. Although almost all of Portland is within Multnomah County, small portions of the city are within Clackamas and Washington counties. Climate Portland has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb), falling just short of a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with cool and rainy winters, and warm and dry summers. This climate is characterized by having overcast, wet, and changing weather conditions in fall, winter, and spring, as Portland lies in the direct path of the stormy westerly flow, and warm, dry summers when the North Pacific High reaches its northernmost point in mid-summer. Portland's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone is 8b, with parts of the Downtown area falling into zone 9a. Winters are cool, cloudy, and rainy. The coldest month is December with an average daily high temperature of 46.9 °F (8.3 °C), although overnight lows usually remain above freezing by a few degrees. Evening temperatures fall to or below freezing 32 nights per year on average, but very rarely below 18 °F (−8 °C). There are only 2.1 days per year where the daytime high temperature fails to rise above freezing; the mean for the lowest high is at the exact freezing point of 32 °F (0 °C). The lowest overnight temperature ever recorded was −3 °F (−19 °C), on February 2, 1950, while the lowest daytime high temperature ever recorded was 14 °F (−10 °C) on December 30, 1968. The average window in which freezing temperatures may occur is between November 15 and March 19, allowing a growing season of 240 days. Annual snowfall in Portland is 4.3 inches (10.9 cm), which usually falls between December and March. The city of Portland avoids snow more frequently than its suburbs, due in part to its low elevation and the urban heat island effect. Neighborhoods outside of the downtown core, especially in slightly higher elevations near the West Hills and Mount Tabor, can experience a dusting of snow while downtown receives no accumulation at all. The city has experienced a few major snow and ice storms in its past, with extreme totals having reached 44.5 in (113 cm) at the airport in 1949–50 and 60.9 in (155 cm) at downtown in 1892–93. Summers in Portland are warm, dry, and sunny, though the sunny warm weather is short-lived, from mid-June to early September. June, July, August and September account for a combined 4.19 inches (106 mm) of total rainfall – only 11% of the 36.91 in (938 mm) of annual precipitation. The warmest month is August, with an average high temperature of 82.3 °F (27.9 °C). Because of its inland location 62 miles (100 km) from the coast, as well as the protective nature of the Oregon Coast Range to its west, Portland summers are less susceptible to the moderating influence of the nearby Pacific Ocean. Consequently, Portland occasionally experiences heat waves, with temperatures rising above 90 °F (32 °C) for a few days. However, on average, temperatures reach or exceed 80 °F (27 °C) on only 61 days per year, of which 15 days will reach 90 °F (32 °C) and only 1.3 days will reach 100 °F (38 °C). In 2018 more 90-degree days were recorded than ever before. On June 28, 2021, Portland recorded its all-time record high temperature of 116 °F (47 °C) and its warmest daily low temperature of 75 °F (24 °C) during a major regional heat wave. The record had been broken for three consecutive days with daytime highs of 108 °F (42 °C) on June 26 and 112 °F (44 °C) on June 27; the previous record of 107 °F (42 °C) was set in July 1965 and matched twice in August 1981. A temperature of 100 °F (38 °C) has been recorded in all five months from May through September. The warmest night of the year averages 68 °F (20 °C). Spring and fall can bring variable weather including high-pressure ridging that sends temperatures surging above 80 °F (27 °C) and cold fronts that plunge daytime temperatures into the 40s °F (4–9 °C). However, lengthy stretches of overcast days beginning in mid-fall and continuing into mid-spring are most common. Rain often falls as a light drizzle for several consecutive days at a time, contributing to 157 days on average with measurable (≥0.01 in or 0.25 mm) precipitation annually. Temperatures have reached 90 °F (32 °C) as early as April 30 and as late as October 5, while 80 °F (27 °C) has been reached as early as April 1 and as late as October 21. Thunderstorms are uncommon and tornadoes are very rare, although they do occur. See or edit raw graph data. Cityscape Portland's cityscape derives much of its character from the many bridges that span the Willamette River downtown, several of which are historic landmarks, and Portland has been nicknamed "Bridgetown" for many decades as a result. Three of downtown's most heavily used bridges are more than 100 years old and are designated historic landmarks: Hawthorne Bridge (1910), Steel Bridge (1912), and Broadway Bridge (1913). Portland's newest bridge in the downtown area, Tilikum Crossing, opened in 2015 and is the first new bridge to span the Willamette in Portland since the 1973 opening of the double-decker Fremont Bridge. Other bridges that span the Willamette River in the downtown area include the Burnside Bridge, the Ross Island Bridge (both built 1926), and the double-decker Marquam Bridge (built 1966). Other bridges outside the downtown area include the Sellwood Bridge (built 2016) to the south; and the St. Johns Bridge, a Gothic revival suspension bridge built in 1931, to the north. The Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge and the Interstate Bridge provide access from Portland across the Columbia River into Washington state. Neighborhoods The Willamette River, which flows north through downtown, serves as the natural boundary between East and West Portland. The denser and earlier-developed west side extends into the lap of the West Hills, while the flatter east side extends for roughly 180 blocks until it meets the suburb of Gresham. In 1891 the cities of Portland, Albina, and East Portland were consolidated, creating inconsistent patterns of street names and addresses. It was not unusual for a street name to be duplicated in disparate areas. The "Great Renumbering" on September 2, 1931, standardized street naming patterns and divided Portland into five "general districts." It also changed house numbers from 20 per block to 100 per block and adopted a single street name on a grid. For example, the 200 block north of Burnside is either NW Davis Street or NE Davis Street throughout the entire city. The six previous addressing sections of Portland, which were colloquially known as quadrants despite there being six, have developed distinctive identities, with mild cultural differences and friendly rivalries between their residents, especially between those who live east of the Willamette River versus west of the river. Portland's addressing sections are North, Northwest, Northeast, South, Southeast, and Southwest (which includes downtown Portland). The Willamette River divides the city into east and west while Burnside Street, which traverses the entire city lengthwise, divides the north and south. North Portland consists of the peninsula formed by the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, with N Williams Ave serving as its eastern boundary. All addresses and streets within the city are prefixed by N, NW, NE, S, SW or SE with the exception of Burnside Street, which is prefixed with W or E. Starting on May 1, 2020, former Southwest prefix addresses with house numbers on east–west streets leading with zero dropped the zero and the street prefix on all streets (including north–south streets) converted from Southwest to South. For example, the current address of 246 S California St. was changed from 0246 SW California St. and the current address of 4310 S Macadam Ave. was converted from 4310 SW Macadam Ave. The new South Portland addressing section was approved by the Portland City Council on June 6, 2018 and is bounded by SW Naito Parkway, SW View Point Terrace and the Tryon Creek State Natural Area to the west, SW Clay Street to the north, the Willamette River to the east, and city limits to the south. It includes the Lair Hill, Johns Landing and South Waterfront districts and Lewis & Clark College as well as the Riverdale area of unincorporated Multnomah County south of the Portland city limits. In 2018, the city's Bureau of Transportation finalized a plan to transition this part of Portland into South Portland, beginning on May 1, 2020, to reduce confusion by 9-1-1 dispatchers and delivery services. With the addition of South Portland, all six addressing sectors (N, NE, NW, S, SE and SW) are now officially known as sextants. The Pearl District in Northwest Portland, which was largely occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards in the early to mid-20th century, now houses upscale art galleries, restaurants, and retail stores, and is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. Areas further west of the Pearl District include neighborhoods known as Uptown and Nob Hill, as well as the Alphabet District and NW 23rd Ave., a major shopping street lined with clothing boutiques and other upscale retail, mixed with cafes and restaurants. Northeast Portland is home to the Lloyd District, Alberta Arts District, and the Hollywood District. North Portland is largely residential and industrial. It contains Kelley Point Park, the northernmost point of the city. It also contains the St. Johns neighborhood, which is historically one of the most ethnically diverse and poorest neighborhoods in the city. Old Town Chinatown is next to the Pearl District in Northwest Portland. In 1890 it was the second largest Chinese community in the United States. In 2017, the crime rate was several times above the city average. This neighborhood has been called Portland's skid row. Southwest Portland is largely residential. Downtown district, made up of commercial businesses, museums, skyscrapers, and public landmarks represents a small area within the southwest address section. Portland's South Waterfront area has been developing into a dense neighborhood of shops, condominiums, and apartments starting in the mid-2000s. Development in this area is ongoing. The area is served by the Portland Streetcar, the MAX Orange Line and four TriMet bus lines. This former industrial area sat as a brownfield prior to development in the mid-2000s. Southeast Portland is largely residential, and consists of several neighborhoods, including Hawthorne District, Belmont, Brooklyn, and Mount Tabor. Reed College, a private liberal arts college that was founded in 1908, is located within the confines of Southeast Portland as is Mount Tabor, a volcanic landform. Demographics Ethnicity The 2020 census reported the city as 73.8% White (449,025 people), 8.2% Asian (52,854), 5.8% Black or African American (38,217), 0.9% Native American (7,335), 0.5% Pacific Islander (3,919), and 5.0% from two or more races (69,898). 10.3% were Hispanic or Latino, of any race (72,336). Whites not of Hispanic origin made up 68.8% of the total population. The 2010 census reported the city as 76.1% White (444,254 people), 7.1% Asian (41,448), 6.3% Black or African American (36,778), 1.0% Native American (5,838), 0.5% Pacific Islander (2,919), 4.7% belonging to two or more racial groups (24,437) and 5.0% from other races (28,987). 9.4% were Hispanic or Latino, of any race (54,840). Whites not of Hispanic origin made up 72.2% of the total population. In 1940, Portland's African-American population was approximately 2,000 and largely consisted of railroad employees and their families. During the war-time Liberty Ship construction boom, the need for workers drew many Black people to the city. The new influx of Black people settled in specific neighborhoods, such as the Albina district and Vanport. The May 1948 flood which destroyed Vanport eliminated the only integrated neighborhood, and an influx of blacks into the northeast quadrant of the city continued. Portland's longshoremen racial mix was described as being "lily-white" in the 1960s when the local International Longshore and Warehouse Union declined to represent grain handlers since some were black. Over two-thirds of Oregon's African-American residents live in Portland. As of the 2000 census, three of its high schools (Cleveland, Lincoln and Wilson) were over 70% White, reflecting the overall population, while Jefferson High School was 87% non-White. The remaining six schools have a higher number of non-Whites, including Blacks and Asians. Hispanic students average from 3.3% at Wells to 31% at Roosevelt. Portland residents identifying solely as Asian Americans account for 7.1% of the population; an additional 1.8% is partially of Asian heritage. Vietnamese Americans make up 2.2% of Portland's population, and make up the largest Asian ethnic group in the city, followed by Chinese (1.7%), Filipinos (0.6%), Japanese (0.5%), Koreans (0.4%), Laotians (0.4%), Hmong (0.2%), and Cambodians (0.1%). A small population of Iu Mien live in Portland. Portland has two Chinatowns, with New Chinatown in the 'Jade District' along SE 82nd Avenue with Chinese supermarkets, Hong Kong style noodle houses, dim sum, and Vietnamese phở restaurants. With about 12,000 Vietnamese residing in the city proper, Portland has one of the largest Vietnamese populations in America per capita. According to statistics, there are over 4,500 Pacific Islanders in Portland, making up 0.7% of the city's population. There is a Tongan community in Portland, who arrived in the area in the 1970s, and Tongans and Pacific Islanders as a whole are one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the Portland area. Portland's population has been and remains predominantly White. In 1940, Whites were over 98% of the city's population. In 2009, Portland had the fifth-highest percentage of White residents among the 40 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. A 2007 survey of the 40 largest cities in the U.S. concluded Portland's urban core has the highest percentage of White residents. Some scholars have noted the Pacific Northwest as a whole is "one of the last Caucasian bastions of the United States". While Portland's diversity was historically comparable to metro Seattle and Salt Lake City, those areas grew more diverse in the late 1990s and 2000s. Portland not only remains White, but migration to Portland is disproportionately White. The Oregon Territory banned African American settlement in 1849. In the 19th century, certain laws allowed the immigration of Chinese laborers but prohibited them from owning property or bringing their families. The early 1920s saw the rapid growth of the Ku Klux Klan, which became very influential in Oregon politics, culminating in the election of Walter M. Pierce as governor. The largest influxes of minority populations occurred during World War II, as the African American population grew by a factor of 10 for wartime work. After World War II, the Vanport flood in 1948 displaced many African Americans. As they resettled, redlining directed the displaced workers from the wartime settlement to neighboring Albina. There and elsewhere in Portland, they experienced police hostility, lack of employment, and mortgage discrimination, leading to half the black population leaving after the war. In the 1980s and 1990s, radical skinhead groups flourished in Portland. In 1988, Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant, was killed by three skinheads. The response to his murder involved a community-driven series of rallies, campaigns, nonprofits and events designed to address Portland's racial history, leading to a city considered significantly more tolerant than in 1988 at Seraw's death. Portland has a substantial Roma population. 76% of Latinos in Portland are of Mexican heritage. Italians and Russian Jews had a very visible presence in Portland. Households As of the 2010 census, there were 583,776 people living in the city, organized into 235,508 households. The population density was 4,375.2 people per square mile. There were 265,439 housing units at an average density of 1,989.4 per square mile (768.1/km2). Population growth in Portland increased 10.3% between 2000 and 2010. Population growth in the Portland metropolitan area has outpaced the national average during the last decade, and this is expected to continue over the next 50 years. Out of 223,737 households, 24.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.1% were married couples living together, 10.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.1% were non-families. 34.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.3 and the average family size was 3. The age distribution was 21.1% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 34.7% from 25 to 44, 22.4% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.9 males. The median income for a household in the city was $40,146, and the median income for a family was $50,271. Males had a reported median income of $35,279 versus $29,344 reported for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,643. 13.1% of the population and 8.5% of families were below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 15.7% of those under the age of 18 and 10.4% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line. Figures delineating the income levels based on race are not available at this time. According to the Modern Language Association, in 2010 80.9% (539,885) percent of Multnomah County residents ages 5 and over spoke English as their primary language at home. 8.1% of the population spoke Spanish (54,036), with Vietnamese speakers making up 1.9%, and Russian 1.5%. Social The Portland metropolitan area has historically had a significant LGBT population throughout the late 20th and early 21st century. In 2015, the city metro had the second highest percentage of LGBT residents in the United States with 5.4% of residents identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, second only to San Francisco. In 2006, it was reported to have the seventh highest LGBT population in the country, with 8.8% of residents identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and the metro ranking fourth in the nation at 6.1%. The city held its first pride festival in 1975 on the Portland State University campus. Religion Portland has been cited as the least religious city in the United States with over 42% of residents identifying as religiously "unaffiliated", according to the nonpartisan and nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute's American Values Atlas. Homelessness A 2019 survey by the city's budget office showed that homelessness is perceived as the top challenge facing Portland, and was cited as a reason people move and do not participate in park programs. Calls to 911 concerning "unwanted persons" have significantly increased between 2013 and 2018, and the police are increasingly dealing with homeless and mentally ill. Homelessness has taken a toll on the sense of safety among visitors, and residents and business owners are adversely impacted. Even though homeless services and shelter beds have increased, as of 2020 homelessness is considered an intractable problem in Portland. The proposed budget for 2022–23 includes $5.8MM to buy land for affordable housing, and $36MM to equip and operate "safe rest villages". A 2022 initiative approved by the Portland city council makes homeless camping illegal, eventually requiring homeless individuals to move into mass shelters. Crime According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report in 2009, Portland ranked 53rd in violent crime out of the top 75 U.S. cities with a population greater than 250,000. The murder rate in Portland in 2013 averaged 2.3 murders per 100,000 people per year, which was lower than the national average. In 2011, 72% of arrested male subjects tested positive for illegal drugs and the city was dubbed the "deadliest drug market in the Pacific Northwest" due to drug related deaths. In 2010, ABC's Nightline reported that Portland is one of the largest hubs for child sex trafficking. Car theft rates in Portland are the fifth highest of any US metropolitan area as of 2023. According to the Los Angeles Times in 2023: "Shootings in the city have tripled" and "Lower-level crimes have spiked too: More than 11,000 vehicles were stolen in 2022, up from 6,500 in 2019." In the Portland Metropolitan statistical area which includes Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, and Yamhill Counties, OR and Clark and Skamania Counties, WA for 2017, the murder rate was 2.6, violent crime was 283.2 per 100,000 people per year. In 2017, the population within the city of Portland was 649,408 and there were 24 murders and 3,349 violent crimes. Portland's 101 homicides in 2022 set a new record. For 2021 year, Portland recorded 90 homicides, compared with 20 in 2016, and 27 in 2017. Economy Portland's location is beneficial for several industries. Relatively low energy cost, accessible resources, north–south and east–west Interstates, international air terminals, large marine shipping facilities, and both west coast intercontinental railroads are all economic advantages. The city's marine terminals alone handle over 13 million tons of cargo per year, and the port is home to one of the largest commercial dry docks in the country. The Port of Portland is the third-largest export tonnage port on the west coast of the U.S., and being about 80 miles (130 km) upriver, it is the largest fresh-water port. The scrap steel industry's history in Portland predates World War II. The scrap steel industry thrives in the region, with Schnitzer Steel Industries, a prominent scrap steel company, shipping a record 1.15 billion tons of scrap metal to Asia during 2003. Other heavy industry companies include ESCO Corporation and Oregon Steel Mills. Technology is a major component of the city's economy, with more than 1,200 technology companies existing within the metro. This high density of technology companies has led to the nickname Silicon Forest being used to describe the Portland area, a reference to the abundance of trees in the region and to the Silicon Valley region in Northern California. The area also hosts facilities for software companies and online startup companies, some supported by local seed funding organizations and business incubators. Computer components manufacturer Intel is the Portland area's largest employer, providing jobs for more than 15,000 people, with several campuses to the west of central Portland in the city of Hillsboro. The Portland metro area has become a business cluster for athletic/outdoor gear and footwear manufacturer's headquarters. Shoes are not manufactured in Portland. The area is home to the global, North American or U.S. headquarters of Nike (the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Oregon), Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, LaCrosse Footwear, Dr. Martens, Li-Ning, Keen, and Hi-Tec Sports. While headquartered elsewhere, Merrell, Amer Sports and Under Armour have design studios and local offices in the Portland area. Other notable Portland-based companies include industrial goods and metal fabrication company Precision Castparts, film animation studio Laika; commercial vehicle manufacturer Daimler Trucks North America; advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy; bankers Umpqua Holdings; child care and early childhood education provider KinderCare Learning Centers; and retailers Fred Meyer, New Seasons Market, Storables, and Powell's Books. Breweries are another major industry in Portland, which is home to 139 breweries/microbreweries, the 7th most in the nation, as of December 2018. Additionally, the city boasts a robust coffee culture that now rivals Seattle and hosts over 20 coffee roasters. Housing In 2016, home prices in Portland grew faster than in any other city in the United States. Apartment rental costs in Portland reported in November 2019 was $1,337 for two bedroom and $1,133 for one bedroom. In 2017, developers projected an additional 6,500 apartments to be built in the Portland Metro Area over the next year. However, as of December 2019, the number of homes available for rent or purchase in Portland continues to shrink. Over the past year, housing prices in Portland have risen 2.5%. Housing prices in Portland continue to rise, the median price rising from $391,400 in November 2018 to $415,000 in November 2019. There has been a rise of people from out of state moving to Portland, which impacts housing availability. Because of the demand for affordable housing and influx of new residents, more Portlanders in their 20s and 30s are still living in their parents' homes. There is a considerable amount of "Airbnb type" rentals in the city. An audit in 2018 located around 4,600 listings, of which 80% were illegally operated. Arts and culture Music, film, and performing arts Portland is home to a range of classical performing arts institutions including the Portland Opera, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Oregon Symphony and Portland Youth Philharmonic; the last of these, established in 1924, was the first youth orchestra established in the United States. The city is also home to several theaters and performing arts institutions including the Oregon Ballet Theatre, Northwest Children's Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, Curious Comedy Theatre and Miracle Theatre. In 2013, The Guardian named the city's music scene as one of the "most vibrant" in the United States. Portland is home to famous bands such as the Kingsmen and Paul Revere & the Raiders, both famous for their association with the song "Louie Louie" (1963). Other widely known musical groups include the Dandy Warhols, Quarterflash, Everclear, Pink Martini, Sleater-Kinney, Blitzen Trapper, the Decemberists, and the late Elliott Smith. More recently, Portugal. The Man, Modest Mouse, and the Shins have made their home in Portland. In the 1980s, the city was home to a burgeoning punk scene, which included bands such as the Wipers and Dead Moon. The city's now-demolished Satyricon nightclub was a punk venue notorious for being the place where Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain first encountered his future wife and Hole frontwoman Courtney Love in 1990. Love was then a resident of Portland and started several bands there with Kat Bjelland, later of Babes in Toyland. Multi-Grammy award-winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding is from Portland and performed with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at a young age. A wide range of films have been shot in Portland, from various independent features to major big-budget productions. Director Gus Van Sant has notably set and shot many of his films in the city. The city has also been featured in various television programs, notably the IFC sketch comedy series Portlandia. The series, which ran for eight seasons from 2011 to 2018, was shot on location in Portland, and satirized the city as a hub of liberal politics, organic food, alternative lifestyles, and anti-establishment attitudes. MTV's long-time running reality show The Real World was also shot in Portland for the show's 29th season: The Real World: Portland premiered on MTV in 2013. Other television series shot in the city include Leverage, The Librarians, Under Suspicion, Grimm, and Nowhere Man. An unusual feature of Portland entertainment is the large number of movie theaters serving beer, often with second-run or revival films. Notable examples of these "brew and view" theaters include the Bagdad Theater and Pub, a former vaudeville theater built in 1927 by Universal Studios; Cinema 21; and the Laurelhurst Theater, in operation since 1923. Portland hosts the world's longest-running H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival at the Hollywood Theatre. Museums and recreation Portland is home to numerous museums and educational institutions, ranging from art museums to institutions devoted to science and wildlife. Among the science-oriented institutions are the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), which consists of five main halls and other ticketed attractions, such as the USS Blueback submarine, the ultra-large-screen Empirical Theater (which replaced an OMNIMAX theater in 2013), and the Kendall Planetarium. The World Forestry Center Discovery Museum, located in the city's Washington Park area, offers educational exhibits on forests and forest-related subjects. Also located in Washington Park are the Hoyt Arboretum, the International Rose Test Garden, the Japanese Garden, and the Oregon Zoo. The Portland Art Museum owns the city's largest art collection and presents a variety of touring exhibitions each year and, with the recent addition of the Modern and Contemporary Art wing, it became one of the United States' 25 largest museums. The Oregon Historical Society Museum, founded in 1898, which has a variety of books, film, pictures, artifacts, and maps dating back throughout Oregon's history. It houses permanent and temporary exhibits about Oregon history, and hosts traveling exhibits about the history of the United States. Oaks Amusement Park, in the Sellwood district of Southeast Portland, is the city's only amusement park and is also one of the country's longest-running amusement parks. It has operated since 1905 and was known as the "Coney Island of the Northwest" upon its opening. Cuisine and breweries Food carts are extremely popular within the city, with over 600 licensed carts. The city is home to Stumptown Coffee Roasters as well as dozens of other micro-roasteries and cafes. Portland has 58 active breweries within city limits, and 70+ within the surrounding metro area. and data compiled by the Brewers Association ranks Portland seventh in the United States as of 2018. Portland hosts a number of festivals throughout the year that celebrate beer and brewing, including the Oregon Brewers Festival, held in Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Held each summer during the last full weekend of July, it is the largest outdoor craft beer festival in North America, with over 70,000 attendees in 2008. Other major beer festivals throughout the calendar year include the Spring Beer and Wine Festival in April, the North American Organic Brewers Festival in June, the Portland International Beerfest in July, and the Holiday Ale Festival in December. Sustainability The city became a pioneer of state-directed metropolitan planning, a program which was instituted statewide in 1969 to compact the urban growth boundaries of the city. Portland was the first city to enact a comprehensive plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Free speech and public nudity Strong free speech protections of the Oregon Constitution upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court in State v. Henry, specifically found that full nudity and lap dances in strip clubs are protected speech. Portland has the highest number of strip clubs per-capita in a city in the United States, and Oregon ranks as the highest state for per-capita strip clubs. In November 2008, a Multnomah County judge dismissed charges against a nude bicyclist arrested on June 26, 2008. The judge stated that the city's annual World Naked Bike Ride – held each year in June since 2004 – has created a "well-established tradition" in Portland where cyclists may ride naked as a form of protest against cars and fossil fuel dependence. The defendant was not riding in the official World Naked Bike Ride at the time of his arrest as it had occurred 12 days earlier that year, on June 14. Protests From November 10 to 12, 2016, protests in Portland turned into a riot, when a group broke off from a larger group of peaceful protesters who were opposed to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Public art Sports Portland is home to three major league sports franchises: the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA, the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer (MLS), and the Portland Thorns FC of the National Women's Soccer League. In 2015, the Timbers won the MLS Cup, which was the first male professional sports championship for a team from Portland since the Trail Blazers won the NBA championship in 1977. Despite being the 19th most populated metro area in the United States, Portland contains only one franchise from the NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB, making it the United States' second most populated metro area with that distinction, behind San Antonio, which also has only one NBA team (the Spurs). The city has been often rumored to receive an additional franchise, although efforts to acquire a team have failed due to stadium funding issues. An organization known as the Portland Diamond Project (PDP) has worked with MLB and local government, and there are plans to have an MLB stadium constructed at Zidell Yards in the South Waterfront neighborhood. The PDP has not yet received the funding for this project. On September 18, 2024, it was announced that the city would receive a WNBA franchise, slated to start in 2026. Portland sports fans are characterized by their passionate support. The Trail Blazers sold out every home game between 1977 and 1995, a span of 814 consecutive games, the second-longest streak in American sports history. The Timbers joined MLS in 2011 and have sold out every home match since joining the league, a streak that has now reached 70+ matches. The Timbers season ticket waiting list has reached 10,000+, the longest waiting list in MLS. In 2015, they became the first team in the Northwest to win the MLS Cup. Player Diego Valeri marked a new record for fastest goal in MLS Cup history at 27 seconds into the game. The annual Cambia Portland Classic women's golf tournament in September, now in its 50th year, is the longest-running non-major tournament on the LPGA Tour, plays in the southern suburb of West Linn. Two rival universities exist within Portland city limits: the University of Portland Pilots and the Portland State University Vikings, both of whom field teams in popular spectator sports including soccer, baseball, and basketball. Portland State also has a football team. Additionally, the University of Oregon Ducks (in Eugene) and the Oregon State University Beavers (in Corvallis) both receive substantial attention and support from many Portland residents, despite their campuses being 110 and 84 miles from the city, respectively. Running is a popular activity in Portland, and every year the city hosts the Portland Marathon as well as parts of the Hood to Coast Relay, the world's largest long-distance relay race (by number of participants). Portland served as the center to an elite running group, the Nike Oregon Project until its 2019 disbandment following coach Alberto Salazar's ban due to doping violations. Historic Erv Lind Stadium is located in Normandale Park. It has been home to professional and college softball. Portland also hosts numerous cycling events and has become an elite bicycle racing destination. The Oregon Bicycle Racing Association supports hundreds of official bicycling events every year. Weekly events at Alpenrose Velodrome and Portland International Raceway allow for racing nearly every night of the week from March through September. Cyclocross races, such as the Cross Crusade, can attract over 1,000 riders and spectators. Parks and recreation Parks and greenspace planning date back to John Charles Olmsted's 1903 Report to the Portland Park Board. In 1995, voters in the Portland metropolitan region passed a regional bond measure to acquire valuable natural areas for fish, wildlife, and people. Ten years later, more than 8,100 acres (33 km2) of ecologically valuable natural areas had been purchased and permanently protected from development. Portland is one of only four cities in the U.S. with extinct volcanoes within its boundaries (along with Pilot Butte in Bend, Oregon, Jackson Volcano in Jackson, Mississippi, and Diamond Head in Honolulu, Hawaii). Mount Tabor Park is known for its scenic views and historic reservoirs. Forest Park is the largest wilderness park within city limits in the United States, covering more than 5,000 acres (2,023 ha). Portland is also home to Mill Ends Park, the world's smallest park (a two-foot-diameter circle, the park's area is only about 0.3 m2). Washington Park is just west of downtown and is home to the Oregon Zoo, Hoyt Arboretum, the Portland Japanese Garden, and the International Rose Test Garden. Portland is also home to Lan Su Chinese Garden (formerly the Portland Classical Chinese Garden), an authentic representation of a Suzhou-style walled garden. Portland's east side has several formal public gardens: the historic Peninsula Park Rose Garden, the rose gardens of Ladd's Addition, the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, the Leach Botanical Garden, and The Grotto. Portland's downtown features two groups of contiguous city blocks dedicated for park space: the North and South Park Blocks. The 37-acre (15 ha) Tom McCall Waterfront Park was built in 1974 along the length of the downtown waterfront after Harbor Drive was removed; it now hosts large events throughout the year. The nearby historically significant Burnside Skatepark and five indoor skateparks give Portland a reputation as possibly "the most skateboard-friendly town in America." Tryon Creek State Natural Area is one of three Oregon State Parks in Portland and the most popular; its creek has a run of steelhead. The other two State Parks are Willamette Stone State Heritage Site, in the West Hills, and the Government Island State Recreation Area in the Columbia River near Portland International Airport. In February 2015, the City Council approved a total ban on smoking in all city parks and natural areas effective July 1, 2015. The ban includes cigarettes, vaping, as well as marijuana. Government City hall The city of Portland is governed by the Portland City Council, which includes a mayor, four commissioners, and an auditor. Each is elected citywide to serve a four-year term. Each commissioner oversees one or more bureaus responsible for the day-to-day operation of the city. The mayor serves as chairman of the council and is principally responsible for allocating department assignments to his fellow commissioners. The auditor provides checks and balances in the commission form of government and accountability for the use of public resources. In addition, the auditor provides access to information and reports on various matters of city government. Portland is the only large city left in the United States with the commission form of government. The city's Community & Civic Life (formerly Office of Neighborhood Involvement) serves as a conduit between city government and Portland's 95 officially recognized neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is represented by a volunteer-based neighborhood association which serves as a liaison between residents of the neighborhood and the city government. The city provides funding to neighborhood associations through seven district coalitions, each of which is a geographical grouping of several neighborhood associations. Most (but not all) neighborhood associations belong to one of these district coalitions. Portland and its surrounding metropolitan area are served by Metro, the United States' only directly elected metropolitan planning organization. Metro's charter gives it responsibility for land use and transportation planning, solid waste management, and map development. The Multnomah County government provides many services to the Portland area, as do Washington and Clackamas counties to the west and south. Fire and emergency services are provided by Portland Fire & Rescue. On November 8, 2022, Portland residents approved a charter reform ballot measure to replace the commission form of government with a 12-member council elected in four districts using the single transferable vote system, with a professional city manager appointed by a directly elected mayor. The city expects to hold the first election for this new system in 2024. Courts and law enforcement Law enforcement is provided by the Portland Police Bureau. State and national politics Portland strongly favors the Democratic Party; registered Democrats (51.2%) outnumber Republicans (10.5%) nearly 5 to 1. All city offices are non-partisan. However, almost all of the city's elected officials are known to be Democrats. Fred L. Peterson in 1952 is the city's last elected mayor who was known to be a Republican, and no Republican has served as mayor even on an interim basis since Connie McCready held the post from 1979 to 1980. Portland is split among three of Oregon's U.S. congressional districts. Most of the city is in the 3rd District, represented by Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland), who served on the city council from 1986 until his election to Congress in 1996. Most of the city west of the Willamette River is part of the 1st District, represented by Suzanne Bonamici (D-Beaverton). A small portion of southeastern Portland is in the 5th District, formerly represented by Kurt Schrader (D-Canby) prior to losing his Democratic primary election to a more progressive candidate, but currently represented by the former mayor of Happy Valley, Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is the first Republican to represent a significant portion of the city in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1975. Both of Oregon's senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, are progressive Democrats from Portland. In the 2008 presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama easily carried Portland, winning 245,464 votes from city residents to 50,614 for his Republican rival, John McCain. In the 2012 presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama again easily carried Portland, winning 256,925 votes from Multnomah county residents to 70,958 for his Republican rival, Mitt Romney. Sam Adams, the former mayor of Portland, became the city's first openly gay mayor in 2009. In 2004, 59.7 percent of Multnomah County voters cast ballots against Oregon Ballot Measure 36, which amended the Oregon Constitution to prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages. The measure passed with 56.6% of the statewide vote. Multnomah County is one of two counties where a majority voted against the initiative; the other is Benton County, which includes Corvallis, home of Oregon State University. On April 28, 2005, Portland became the only city in the nation to withdraw from a Joint Terrorism Task Force. As of February 19, 2015, the Portland city council approved permanently staffing the JTTF with two of its city's police officers. City planning and development The city consulted with urban planners as far back as 1904, resulting in the development of Washington Park and the 40-Mile Loop greenway, which connects many of the city's parks. Portland is often cited as an example of a city with strong land use planning controls. This is largely the result of statewide land conservation policies adopted in 1973 under Governor Tom McCall, in particular the requirement for an urban growth boundary (UGB) for every city and metropolitan area. The opposite extreme, a city with few or no controls, is typically illustrated by Houston. Oregon's 1973 "urban growth boundary" law limits the boundaries for large-scale development in each metropolitan area in Oregon. This limits access to utilities such as sewage, water and telecommunications, as well as coverage by fire, police and schools. Portland's urban growth boundary, adopted in 1979, separates urban areas (where high-density development is encouraged and focused) from traditional farm land (where restrictions on non-agricultural development are very strict). This was atypical in an era when automobile use led many areas to neglect their core cities in favor of development along interstate highways, in suburbs, and satellite cities. The original state rules included a provision for expanding urban growth boundaries, but critics felt this was not being accomplished. In 1995, the State passed a law requiring cities to expand UGBs to provide enough undeveloped land for a 20-year supply of future housing at projected growth levels. In 2007, the legislature changed the law to require the maintenance of an estimated 50 years of growth within the boundary, as well as the protection of accompanying farm and rural lands. The growth boundary, along with efforts of the Portland Development Commission to create economic development zones, has led to the development of a large portion of downtown, a large number of mid- and high-rise developments, and an overall increase in housing and business density. Prosper Portland (formerly the Portland Development Commission) is a semi-public agency that plays a major role in downtown development; city voters created it in 1958 to serve as the city's urban renewal agency. It provides housing and economic development programs within the city and works behind the scenes with major local developers to create large projects. In the early 1960s, the Portland Development Commission led the razing of a large Italian-Jewish neighborhood downtown, bounded roughly by I-405, the Willamette River, 4th Avenue and Market street. Mayor Neil Goldschmidt took office in 1972 as a proponent of bringing housing and the associated vitality back to the downtown area, which was seen as emptying out after 5 pm. The effort has had dramatic effects in the 30 years since, with many thousands of new housing units clustered in three areas: north of Portland State University (between I-405, SW Broadway, and SW Taylor St.); the RiverPlace development along the waterfront under the Marquam (I-5) bridge; and most notably in the Pearl District (between I-405, Burnside St., NW Northrup St., and NW 9th Ave.). Historically, environmental consciousness has weighed significantly in the city's planning and development efforts. Portland was one of the first cities in the United States to promote and integrate alternative forms of transportation, such as the MAX Light Rail and extensive bike paths. The Urban Greenspaces Institute, housed in Portland State University Geography Department's Center for Mapping Research, promotes better integration of the built and natural environments. The institute works on urban park, trail, and natural areas planning issues, both at the local and regional levels. In October 2009, the Portland City Council unanimously adopted a climate action plan that will cut the city's greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. As of 2012, Portland was the largest city in the United States that did not add fluoride to its public water supply, and fluoridation has historically been a subject of controversy in the city. Portland voters have four times voted against fluoridation, in 1956, 1962, 1980 (repealing a 1978 vote in favor), and 2013. In 2012 the city council, responding to advocacy from public health organizations and others, voted unanimously to begin fluoridation by 2014. Fluoridation opponents forced a public vote on the issue, and on May 21, 2013, city voters again rejected fluoridation. Education Primary and secondary education Nine public school districts and many private schools include sections of Portland. Portland Public Schools is the largest school district, operating 86 public schools. In addition to PPS, other school districts in Multnomah County that serve parts of the city include the Beaverton School District, Centennial School District, David Douglas School District, Parkrose School District, Reynolds School District, Riverdale School District, and Scappoose School District. Portions in Clackamas County are in the North Clackamas School District and Centennial School District. Portions in Washington County are in Portland Public Schools. David Douglas High School, in the Powellhurst neighborhood, has the largest enrollment of any public high school in the city. Other high schools include Benson, Cleveland, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson, Madison, Parkrose, Roosevelt, and Ida B Wells-Barnett (formerly Woodrow Wilson), and several suburban high schools which serve the city's outer areas. Established in 1869, Lincoln High School (formerly Portland High School) is the city's oldest public education institution, and is one of two of the oldest high schools west of the Mississippi River (after San Francisco's Lowell High School). Former public schools in the city included Washington High School, which operated from 1906 until 1981, as well as Adams and Jackson, which also closed the same year. Higher education Portland State University has the second-largest enrollment rate of any university in the state (after Oregon State University), with a student body of nearly 30,000. It has been named among the top fifteen percentile of American regional universities by The Princeton Review for undergraduate education, and has been internationally recognized for its degrees in Master of Business Administration and urban planning. The city is also home to the Oregon Health & Science University, as well as Portland Community College. Notable private universities include the University of Portland, a Roman Catholic university affiliated with the Congregation of Holy Cross; Reed College, a liberal arts college, and Lewis & Clark College. Media The Oregonian is the only daily general-interest newspaper serving Portland. It also circulates throughout the state and in Clark County, Washington. Smaller local newspapers, distributed free of charge in newspaper boxes and at venues around the city, include the Portland Tribune (general-interest paper published on Wednesdays), Willamette Week (general-interest alternative weekly published on Wednesdays), and The Portland Mercury (another alt-weekly, targeted at younger urban readers and published every other Thursday). The Portland area also has newspapers that are published for specific communities, including The Asian Reporter (a weekly covering Asian news, both international and local) and The Skanner (a weekly African-American newspaper covering both local and national news). The Portland Business Journal covers business-related news on a weekly basis, as does The Daily Journal of Commerce, its main competitor. Portland Monthly is a monthly news and culture magazine. The Bee, over 110 years old, is another neighborhood newspaper serving the inner southeast neighborhoods. Infrastructure Healthcare Legacy Health, a non-profit healthcare system in Portland, operates multiple facilities in the city and surrounding suburbs. These include Legacy Emanuel, founded in 1912, in Northeast Portland; and Legacy Good Samaritan, founded in 1875, and in Northwest Portland. Randall's Children's Hospital operates at the Legacy Emanuel Campus. Good Samaritan has centers for breast health, cancer, and stroke, and is home to the Legacy Devers Eye Institute, the Legacy Obesity and Diabetes Institute, the Legacy Diabetes and Endocrinology Center, the Legacy Rehabilitation Clinic of Oregon, and the Linfield-Good Samaritan School of Nursing. The Catholic-affiliated Providence Health & Services operates Providence Portland Medical Center in the North Tabor neighborhood of the city. Oregon Health & Science University is a university hospital formed in 1974. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center operates next to the Oregon Health & Science University main campus. Adventist Medical Center also serves the city. Shriners Hospital for Children is a small children's hospital established in 1923. Transportation The Portland metropolitan area has transportation services common to major U.S. cities, though Oregon's emphasis on proactive land-use planning and transit-oriented development within the urban growth boundary means commuters have multiple well-developed options. In 2008, 12.6% of all commutes in Portland were on public transit. TriMet operates most of the region's buses and the MAX (short for Metropolitan Area Express) light rail system, which connects the city and suburbs. The 1986-opened MAX system has expanded to five lines, with the latest being the Orange Line to Milwaukie, in service as of September 2015. WES Commuter Rail opened in February 2009 in Portland's western suburbs, linking Beaverton and Wilsonville. The city-owned Portland Streetcar serves two routes in the Central City – downtown and adjacent districts. The first line, which opened in 2001 and was extended in 2005–07, operates from the South Waterfront District through Portland State University and north through the West End of downtown, to shopping areas and dense residential districts north and northwest of downtown. The second line that opened in 2012 added 3.3 miles (5.3 km) of tracks on the east side of the Willamette River and across the Broadway Bridge to a connection with the original line. The east-side line completed a loop to the tracks on the west side of the river upon completion of the new Tilikum Crossing in 2015, and, in anticipation of that, had been named the Central Loop line in 2012. However, it was renamed the Loop Service, with an A Loop (clockwise) and B Loop (counterclockwise), when it became a complete loop with the opening of the Tilikum Crossing bridge. Fifth and Sixth avenues within downtown comprise the Portland Transit Mall, two streets devoted primarily to bus and light rail traffic with limited automobile access. Opened in 1977 for buses, the transit mall was renovated and rebuilt in 2007–09, with light rail added. Starting in 1975 and lasting nearly four decades, all transit service within downtown Portland was free, the area being known by TriMet as Fareless Square, but a need for minor budget cuts and funding needed for expansion prompted the agency to limit free rides to rail service only in 2010, and subsequently to discontinue the fare-free zone entirely in 2012. TriMet provides real-time tracking of buses and trains with its TransitTracker, and makes the data available to software developers so they can create customized tools of their own. I-5 connects Portland with the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, and California to the south and with Washington to the north. I-405 forms a loop with I-5 around the central downtown area of the city and I-205 is a loop freeway route on the east side which connects to the Portland International Airport. U.S. 26 supports commuting within the metro area and continues to the Pacific Ocean westward and Mount Hood and Central Oregon eastward. U.S. 30 has a main, bypass, and business route through the city extending to Astoria to the west; through Gresham, Oregon, and the eastern exurbs, and connects to I-84, traveling towards Boise, Idaho. Portland's main airport is Portland International Airport (PDX), about 20 minutes by car (40 minutes by MAX) northeast of downtown. Portland is also home to Oregon's only public use heliport, the Portland Downtown Heliport. Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Portland at Union Station on three routes. Long-haul train routes include the Coast Starlight (with service from Los Angeles to Seattle) and the Empire Builder (with service to Chicago). The Amtrak Cascades state-supported trains operate between Vancouver, B.C., and Eugene, Oregon, and serve Portland several times daily. The city is also served by Greyhound Lines intercity bus service, which also operates BoltBus, an express bus service. The city's first airport was the Swan Island Municipal Airport, which was closed in the 1940s. Portland is the only city in the United States that owns operating mainline steam locomotives, donated to the city in 1958 by the railroads that ran them. Spokane, Portland & Seattle 700 and the world-famous Southern Pacific 4449 can be seen several times a year pulling a special excursion train, either locally or on an extended trip. The "Holiday Express", pulled over the tracks of the Oregon Pacific Railroad on weekends in December, has become a Portland tradition over its several years running. These trains and others are operated by volunteers of the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation, an amalgamation of rail preservation groups which collaborated on the finance and construction of the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, a permanent and publicly accessible home for the locomotives, which opened in 2012 adjacent to OMSI. In Portland, cycling is a significant mode of transportation. As the city has been particularly supportive of urban bicycling it now ranks highly among the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. Bicycles accounted for 2.8% of commuting in 2021. Bicycle commuting declined by 46% between 2016 and 2022 according to Portland Bureau of Transportation report. For its achievements in promoting cycling as an everyday means of transportation, Portland has been recognized by the League of American Bicyclists and other cycling organizations for its network of on-street bicycling facilities and other bicycle-friendly services, being one of only three U.S. cities to have earned a Platinum-level rating. A new bicycle-sharing system, Biketown, launched on July 19, 2016, with 100 stations in the city's central and eastside neighborhoods. Portland abolished the requirement for parking minimum as well as Minneapolis and Austin. As of 2015, Portland is owed $32.4 million in unpaid parking citations due to the city government's refusal to collect more aggressively. Water The main source of drinking water is the Bull Run Watershed consisting of 102 square miles (260 km2) of forested land on the western flank of Mount Hood The city also has 25 wells in an area which goes from near the airport at I-205 to Blue Lake Park which supplements the supply during the summer. Notable people Sister cities Portland's sister cities are: Portland also has a friendship city agreement with: Utrecht, Province of Utrecht, Netherlands (2012) See also 1972 Portland–Vancouver tornado Keep Portland Weird List of hospitals in Portland, Oregon List of sports venues in Portland, Oregon Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon Roses in Portland, Oregon USS Portland, 2 of 3 ships Washington Center Notes References Bibliography Further reading External links Official website Portland Maps Archived July 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine (lot-level GIS) Portland Business Alliance – Portland Chamber of Commerce Portland's Visitor Association – official visitors' bureau website

BryanStars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BryanStars

Bryan Odell (born May 22, 1990), better known by his online alias BryanStars, is an American former music interviewer, YouTube personality, musician, and artist manager. He is best known for his BryanStars Interviews series, where he interviews with popular artists in the alternative scene, including Black Veil Brides, Asking Alexandria, and Falling in Reverse. Early life Odell was born on May 22, 1990, in Japan, where he resided until he was eight years old. His family later relocated to Dallas, Texas, and then again to Nebraska when he was a teenager. He attended Lincoln East High School, where he graduated in 2008. In his senior year, his short film Energy Crisis in America, highlighting rising gas prices, won third place in the high school section of the StudentCam competition, hosted by C-SPAN. He attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln for two years, majoring in Broadcast Journalism. While in university, he did an internship where he would interview professional bands for a local television station. Odell chose to drop out of university to focus his attention on his YouTube channel "BryanStars" after winning YouTube NextUp in 2011. Through the NextUp contest, YouTube aimed to foster creators on its platform. Odell and 25 other YouTubers received a $35,000 grant for their channel and a multi-day workshop in New York City with professional online bloggers. At the time, he had about 55,000 subscribers. YouTube career Odell is best known for his BryanStars Interviews, series on his YouTube channel, BryanStars. He primarily publishes interviews and music videos from bands of the rock and heavy metal scene. During his career, Odell interviewed artists including Asking Alexandria, Blood On The Dance Floor, Millionaires, Never Shout Never, Motionless In White, Pierce the Veil, Black Veil Brides, All Time Low, Sleeping with Sirens, The Ready Set, One Ok Rock, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots, Avenged Sevenfold, Escape the Fate, Suicide Silence, Disturbed, Creed, Hollywood Undead, Korn, Three Days Grace, Bullet For My Valentine, Cannibal Corpse, Chevelle, and Slipknot, as well as artists like Rob Zombie, Papa Roach, Cody Simpson, G-Eazy, Mitchel Musso and winners of American Idol. Odell has also interviewed record producer Matt Good and YouTube stars Shane Dawson, Michael Buckley and Dave Days. He has published more than 1000 band interviews and music videos to his YouTube Channel. In 2013, BryanStars Interviews was voted by music fans as the "Best Music Blog" in the Alternative Press Reader's Choice Poll 2013. BryanStars Interviews was nominated for a Shorty Award for "Best Web Show" in 2014 along with Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. In 2014, retailer Journeys produced "This Is My Journey" segment about Odell that played in stores nationwide. Never Shout Never incident On June 3, 2012, Never Shout Never was interviewed by Odell in an interview that was being covered by The New York Times. Never Shout Never lead vocalist Christofer Drew Ingle was aware of The New York Times coverage of the interview. About halfway through the interview, Ingle cut Odell off, denouncing his show as "a joke" and his questions as "bullshit" with bassist Taylor MacFee also taking Odell's interview question papers from him, throwing them on the floor, and finding his questions to be annoying and irrelevant. As a result, the band abruptly ended the interview, leaving Odell in tears. An outpour of support for Odell resulted from the incident. Numerous musicians such as Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, Chris Fronzak of Attila, and Andy Biersack of Black Veil Brides came to Odell's defense. In a Stickam broadcast, Ingle expressed remorse for making Odell cry, later admitting that he had taken acid earlier the day of the interview. Warped YouTube Program In 2014, Odell was picked to be one of the "Warped YouTubers" with Damon Fizzy (also calling himself DeeFizzy), Johnnie Guilbert, CYR and Piddleass. The following year, Kevin Lyman (creator of Warped Tour) made Odell the official host of the tour. Odell worked with Warped Tour through 2015 as their official host on all social media, announcing over 100 bands for the tour. Odell taught a class on the 2015 Vans Warped Tour called "YouTube 101" where he taught aspiring YouTubers how to pursue a career in social media. My Digital Escape Odell then founded "My Digital Escape," a collaborative project and YouTube channel featuring numerous smaller creators who shared a similar passion for music. While an active creator in My Digital Escape (MDE), Odell served as manager of the project as well. The channel stopped uploading in May 2016. The channel reached 800,000 subscribers and 100 million views. The channel prominently featured Odell, Johnnie Guilbert, Shannon Taylor (HeyThereImShannon), Luke Wale, Kyle David Hall, Alex Dorame, and Jordan Sweeto. In 2016, My Digital Escape went on tour across the United States and visited 21 cities. Musical endeavors In 2016, Odell went into the studio with ZK Studios to record his debut EP. On March 21, 2016, BryanStars announced the release of a 5-track EP entitled "Follow Your Dreams". It was released on April 1, 2016, and charted on Billboard at #22 on the Alternative New Artist Album Chart, #59 on the New Artist Album Chart and #128 on the Indie Albums Chart. BryanStars also collaborated with Social Repose on a cover of Bring Me The Horizon's "Follow You". In November 2016, Odell announced that he would be releasing a second EP titled the "Picture Perfect EP". It was released on December 4, 2016. BryanStars Tour In 2012, Odell started the "BryanStars Tour", which toured throughout the United States. Odell created three BryanStars Tours from 2012 to 2013. Personal life Odell revealed his homosexuality on his YouTube channel in 2017. After considerable controversy later that same year due to being accused of covering up for convicted sex offender Austin Jones, Odell stepped back from his social media ventures, specifically his YouTube channels. He has not been active on any of his YouTube channels or social media since. Awards and recognition 2011: YouTube NextUp 2013: Alternative Press Magazine — "Best Music Blog" 2014: Shorty Award for "Best Web Show" — Nominated Discography Extended plays Singles References External links Official website

Never_Shout_Never

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Shout_Never

Never Shout Never (originally typeset as nevershoutnever! and NeverShoutNever!) was an American rock band formed in Joplin, Missouri, in 2007. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Christofer Drew began the band as a solo project before expanding it to a band, whose best-known lineup included himself, bassist Taylor MacFee, and drummer Hayden Kaiser. The band that accompanied Drew when it was a solo project were originally known as "The Shout". Never Shout Never released eight full-length albums and nine EPs. History 2007–2009: Formation and early career Christofer Drew Ingle began making music under the alias nevershoutnever! in 2007, when he was 16 years old in his parents basement. His first exposure came through the internet, where he achieved success on Myspace before issuing the extended play, The Yippee EP on July 29, 2008, and selling 46,000 copies in the US. On July 30, 2008, he was featured on TRL, where he performed his debut single "Big City Dreams". The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart. To support the EP, he went on tour in the US with Jamestown Story, Owl City, and Handshakes and Highfives during the summer of 2008. He toured with Hellogoodbye and Ace Enders in the fall of 2008. NeverShoutNever! released the lead single "Trouble" from his third EP, Me & My Uke on December 29, 2008. The song peaked at number five on the Hot Singles Sales chart. The song was later certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in May 2012. In January 2009, Me & My Uke was officially released. NeverShoutNever! started touring with The Scene Aesthetic, The Honorary Title, and The Bigger Lights in late February 2009 and then toured with bands such as Forever the Sickest Kids, The Cab, and Mercy Mercedes, among others in spring 2009 as part of The Bamboozle Roadshow 2009. He played at both The Bamboozle Left 2009 and The Bamboozle 2009. In 2009, Never Shout Never won the mtvU Woodie Awards for Breaking Woodie. 2009–2010: What Is Love and Harmony It was announced on May 29, 2009, that Ingle had signed to Warner Bros. Records, ending a major-label bidding war. As part of the deal, Ingle runs and make releases on his own imprint label, Loveway Records. Ingle's alias became officially stylized as Never Shout Never. The Summer EP was Ingle's first release under Warner Bros. and was released on June 23, 2009. It sold 46,000 copies and the first single from the EP, titled "Happy", was released on iTunes on March 3, 2009. Production for Never Shout Never's debut album began in June 2009, where Butch Walker produced the album. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and at Abbey Road Studios in London. The band embarked on a headlining tour in October 2009 with Carter Hulsey and Now Now Every Children, before joining Dashboard Confessional on their headling tour in November. A self-titled EP, Never Shout Never was released on December 8, 2009 and featured two songs from his upcoming debut album ("What Is Love?" and "Jane Doe"), a re-recorded version of a song from The Yippee EP ("She's Got Style"), and a live version of a song from The Yippee EP ("Big City Dreams"). The debut studio album from Never Shout Never, What Is Love?, was released on January 26, 2010. The album peaked at number 24 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 21,000 copies. The album's first single, "What Is Love?" was released on December 15, 2009. "I Love You 5" was released on February 4, 2010 as the second single from the album. "Can't Stand It" was released on March 4, 2010 as the third and final single from the album along with its music video directed by Isaac Ravishankara. The song peaked at number 29 on the Billboard US Rock Digital Song Sales chart. The group headlined the Alternative Press AP Tour in the spring of 2010 with support from Joplin, The Cab, Hey Monday, Every Avenue and The Summer Set. Never Shout Never performed at the Vans Warped Tour in summer of 2010. The band released a digital EP on July 27, 2010, titled Melody, which contained three tracks: "CheaterCheaterBestFriendEater", "Coffee & Cigarettes" and "Lousy Truth". Their second studio album, Harmony, was released in August 2010. The album peaked at number 14 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 23,000 copies in its first week. In October and November 2010, Never Shout Never co-headlined the Harmony Tour with The Maine, where the bands had fans gather can foods to help those in need. As a gift to the fans, they released a live split EP and was made available for free download on Never Shout Never's website. 2011–2012: Time Travel and Indigo The band's hometown, Joplin, Missouri, was heavily damaged by a tornado on May 22, 2011. Following the destruction, Ingle began a relief fund with United Way to raise $1.2 million for his hometown. To raise awareness about the devastation of Joplin, Ingle took video footage of the destruction and posted it on YouTube on June 1, 2011. The video, which features the song "Time Travel", encouraged viewers to donate to the relief of the town via his United Way fund. The song later went on to become the lead single from their third studio album on July 22, 2011. The album was recorded in Springfield, Missouri at the 2100 Studios. It is also the first album where Never Shout Never recorded as a full band. The album's second single "Simplistic Trance - Like Getaway" was released on August 26, 2011. Never Shout Never's third studio album, Time Travel was released on September 20, 2011. The album peaked at number 35 on the Billboard 200. In support of the album's release, they embarked on a fall headliner tour called The Time Travel Tour. The official music video for "Time Travel" was directed by Joey Boukadakis and was released in September 2011. Ingle first revealed the title of the group's fourth studio album in an interview with Alter The Press! on May 8, 2012, and on September 20, via his Twitter account, he announced the release date of his new album Indigo. According to Drew, he wanted to record every song with a different producer, all in different cities, to give each song a unique feel and its own style. In support of the album's release, the band released five free tracks from their album through Alternative Press and Billboard. Never Shout Never's fourth full-length studio album, Indigo was released November 13, 2012. It debuted at 194 on the Billboard 200, a steep decline from the group's previous high of 14. The band toured the U.S. on the Indigo tour in late 2012. 2013: Sunflower and The Xmas EP In May 2013, Never Shout Never revealed their fifth studio album, Sunflower, which was released on July 2, 2013. The band released the first promotional single, "Good Times" for streaming on May 23, 2013. On May 28, the group released the album's second promotional single, "Subliminal Messages" which premiered exclusively on PropertyOfZack.com. "Malibu" was released for streaming via PureVolume on June 4, as the third promotional single from the album. The album's fourth and final promotional single, "Knock, Knock" was released on June 18. The band performed at Warped Tour in the summer of 2013. During the Warped Tour, Ingle had also teamed with BandHappy, an organization in which experienced musicians taught amateurs how to reach success. He had led a workshop in which a limited number of fans could ask questions and learn from him, with the addition of a one-on-one meet and greet. A festive EP titled The Xmas EP was released on November 22, 2013. Drew produced and recorded the covers himself and collaborated with Dia Frampton on the original track "Under The Mistletoe". The song was released for streaming on November 15. The EP was recorded in Drew's home. The group headlined the Xmas Tour with support from The Downtown Fiction and Nick Santino in December 2013. 2014–2016: Recycled Youth, Black Cat, and Departure of MacFee In late 2013, Never Shout Never announced that the group was working on a new album called Recycled Youth, Vol. 1. The album featured re-worked songs from previous Never Shout Never releases. In January 2014 the band announced that the group had begun recording the album, and was expected to be released later that year. The album was the first installment of what Drew envisioned to be a three part collection of re-recorded fan and band favorites. It was produced by Eric Palmquist in Los Angeles, California. In June 2014, Never Shout Never announced that Ian Crawford joined the band as the lead guitarist. Recycled Youth, Vol. 1 was released on March 3, 2015. On June 9, 2015, it was announced that Never Shout Never would be releasing their seventh studio album, Black Cat on August 7, 2015. The first single off of the album, titled "Hey! We OK", was released the same day. The album was recorded in the DTLA Recording Studio in Los Angeles, California and was produced by Dennis Herring. On June 17, the group released "Boom!" as the first promotional single from the album. On July 16, the band premiered a new track titled, "Red Balloon" and was released as the album's second promotional single. The album peaked at number 52 on the Billboard 200. On November 24, 2015, Ian Crawford confirmed on his Facebook page that he had been let go from the band. The band embarked on the Black Cat Tour in January 2016. "Red Balloon" was officially released as the album's second single on February 5, 2016. "Hey! We Ok" was nominated at the 2016 Alternative Press Music Awards for Song of the Year. The group headlined a US tour in June 2016 with support from Hundred Handed and Me Like Bees. On June 26, 2016, bassist Taylor MacFee announced his departure from the band. In November 2016, the group released their ninth EP, Advent Of Violett Soul. 2017–2018: Cancelled studio albums and break-up In June 2017, Never Shout Never performed at the 2017 Warped Tour. They later embarked on the Throwback Tour, as well as performing at the So What?! Music Festival. The tour lasted throughout 2017 where they played songs from earlier albums that likely wouldn't be played again for a long time. In April 2017, Drew revealed he had plans on releasing Never Shout Never's eighth studio album, Emerald Sun. He described the record as "conceptual," dealing with the theme of love. He stated, "It's something I wrote that I feel has a higher message behind it. It's the album I've been wanting to make — [it] portrays my heart and how I see the world." 13 tracks were written for the album. The album was expected to be released in the summer of 2018, but never made its way onto streaming services. On March 23, 2018, the band released a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" on their upcoming cover album, All for Love, composed entirely of covers of love songs. On April 2, they released their cover of the Beatles' "Something". It is unlikely All for Love was finished and will ever be released. Drew continued to upload a handful of covers on YouTube, but these were likely not final recordings for the album, nor were they likely intended to be on the album at all. Ingle revealed in December 2018 that after a small tour in Mexico and Brazil the following month that Never Shout Never would disband. However, he reached out to fans via an Instagram post two days later asking if he should keep making music under the name. Despite the initial announcement, the band performed shows in Brazil and Mexico in early 2019. Following the final show in Brazil (with long-time drummer Hayden Kaiser absent) he stated he was uncertain of the band's future, but no official breakup announcement was confirmed. 2020–2023: Unborn Spark, return and retirement On April 29, 2020, Drew announced a solo acoustic album titled Unborn Spark, due for release on May 13, his son's 1st birthday. However, on May 5, he announced that he needed a little more time for mixing and artwork to be completed. On May 17, he announced that the album would be released on June 12. On June 8, the first single, "Time to Change", was released. With it came the announcement that it would be released as a Never Shout Never album. Never Shout Never returned in late 2021, releasing a new single titled "Easy Swagger" in October. On March 8, 2022, Drew announced his retirement from music, putting an end to the band. In addition, Drew confirmed on Twitter that Never Shout Never was finished. However, on December 24, 2022, he announced that Never Shout Never would be returning the following year and also announced a release of a new album. On November 25, 2023, Drew announced via Twitter his second retirement from music, revealing that he would pursue a new career in professional painting. He also released the final mixes of his intended album, Advent of Violet Soul on the same day. Band members Former members Christofer Drew – lead vocals, guitars, bass, ukulele, violin, drums, percussion, piano, keyboards, synthesizers, programming, banjo, harmonica, (2007–2023) Caleb Denison – guitars, drums, percussion, backing vocals (2008–2011) Ian Crawford – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015) Taylor Macfee – bass, backing vocals (2008–2016) Hayden Kaiser – auxiliary percussion, backing vocals, drums, guitars (2009–2018) Dustin Dobernig – piano, percussion, keyboards, violin (2009–2011) Nathan Ellison – drums, percussion (2008–2011) Tof Hoglen – keyboards (2016–2018) Timeline Discography Albums What Is Love? (2010) Harmony (2010) Time Travel (2011) Indigo (2012) Sunflower (2013) Recycled Youth (2015) Black Cat (2015) Unborn Spark (2020) Awards and nominations Alternative Press Music Awards mtvU Woodie Awards PETA's Libby Awards References External links Official website Never Shout Never at MTV Never Shout Never at Purevolume Interview with Never Shout Never on Shockhound Interview with Never Shout Never on Thought Catalog Archived 2013-07-19 at the Wayback Machine

2011_Joplin_tornado

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado

The 2011 Joplin tornado was a large and devastating multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, United States, on the evening of Sunday, May 22, 2011. Part of a larger late-May tornado outbreak, the EF5 tornado began just west of Joplin and intensified very quickly, reaching a maximum width of nearly one mile (1.6 km) during its path through the southern part of the city. The tornado tracked eastward through Joplin, and then continued across Interstate 44 into rural portions of Jasper and Newton counties, weakening before it dissipated. The tornado devastated a large portion of the city of Joplin, damaging nearly 8,000 buildings, and of those, destroying over 4,000. The damage—which included major facilities like one of Joplin's two hospitals as well as much of its basic infrastructure—amounted to a total of $2.8 billion, making the Joplin tornado the costliest single tornado in U.S. history. The insurance payout was the highest in Missouri history, breaking the previous record of $2 billion from the hailstorm of April 10, 2001. Overall, the tornado killed 158 people (with an additional eight indirect deaths) and injured some 1,150 others. It ranks as one of the United States' deadliest tornadoes: it was the deadliest U.S. tornado since the April 9, 1947, F5 tornado in Woodward, Oklahoma, and the seventh-deadliest in U.S. history. It was the deadliest tornado in Missouri history, as well as the first single tornado since the 1953 Flint–Beecher tornado in Michigan to cause more than 100 fatalities. It was the first F5/EF5 tornado to occur in Missouri since May 20, 1957, when an F5 tornado destroyed several suburbs of Kansas City, and only the second F5/EF5 tornado in Missouri since 1950. It was the third tornado to strike Joplin since May 1971. Meteorological synopsis On the evening of May 21, 2011, an area of low pressure was centered over western South Dakota. This feature, in addition to steep lapse rates and dewpoints above 60 °F (16 °C), was conducive to the development of supercells later in the day. Very large hail was forecast, but the tornado threat was forecast to remain isolated.: 15–16  At 8:00 a.m. CDT (1300 UTC), the National Weather Service (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued a slight risk of severe storms for much of the upper Plains and the Midwest. By 8:00 a.m. CDT (1300 UTC) on May 22, forecasters at the SPC realized that a more intense weather outbreak was likely to occur, and upgraded a large swath of the Midwest to a moderate risk. The system was forecast to evolve into a wave early Monday morning as a trough strengthened from the western United States. At the surface, a cold front was forecast to pass through the region later in the day, while a dryline was forecast to intersect the cold front in Kansas. These features, accompanied by the low-pressure system, encouraged very strong storm development along the cold front. By the 11:30 a.m. CDT (1630 UTC) updated outlook, certainty had grown stronger that a major severe weather event would occur that afternoon. A public severe weather outlook was issued at this time, and the outlook stated that severe weather was expected that afternoon, with tornadoes, large hail and strong winds all named as threats. At 1:30 p.m. CDT (1830 UTC), four hours prior to the tornado, the SPC issued a tornado watch for southwestern Missouri, to remain in effect until 9:00 p.m. CDT.: 2  The watch predicted "explosive thunderstorm development," with a "strong tornado or two possible.": 20  Thunderstorms began developing between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. over southeast Kansas. They quickly became severe, and as thunderstorm development continued moving to the east, forecasters became more concerned about imminent tornado development. A tornado warning for the severe thunderstorm west of Joplin that eventually produced the EF5 tornado was first issued at 5:17 p.m. CDT (22:17 UTC), 17 minutes before it touched down and 19 minutes before it entered the city of Joplin.: 17 Storm track and damage Beginning The tornado first touched down in Newton County, Missouri, just east of the Missouri–Kansas state line, approximately one-half mile (0.80 km) southwest of the intersection of South Central City Road and 32nd Street, at 5:34 p.m. CDT (22:34 UTC). Eyewitnesses and storm chasers reported multiple vortices rotating around the parent circulation. Here, the tornado downed several large trees at EF0 intensity. Civil defense sirens sounded in Joplin twenty minutes before the tornado struck, in response to the tornado warning issued at 5:17 p.m. CDT (22:17 UTC) for northwestern Newton and southwestern Jasper counties in Missouri, and southeastern portions of Cherokee County, Kansas, but many Joplin residents did not heed the warning or the sirens. The tornado moved east-northeast and strengthened to EF1 intensity as it continued through rural areas towards Joplin, snapping trees and power poles and damaging outbuildings. Widening, the tornado then tracked into the more densely populated southwest corner of the city near the Twin Hills Country Club. It heavily damaged several homes at a subdivision in this area at up to EF3 strength. The tornado continued to cause EF3 damage as it moved through another subdivision just east of Iron Gates Road. Numerous homes were destroyed and multiple vehicles tossed around, some of which were thrown onto or rolled into homes. The tornado reached EF4 intensity just before crossing S. Schifferdecker Ave. EF5 intensity in Joplin The now massive and wedge-shaped tornado then crossed S. Schifferdecker Ave. at 5:38 p.m. CDT (22:38 UTC),: 17  producing its first area of EF4 damage only four minutes after touching down, as several small but well-built commercial buildings were flattened. One person was killed after they were ejected from their car as the tornado crossed the road. Further strengthening resulted in the tornado reaching EF5 intensity shortly afterwards. Consistent EF4 to EF5 damage was noted east of S. Schifferdecker Ave. and continued through most of southern Joplin. Numerous homes, businesses, and medical buildings were flattened in this area, with concrete walls collapsed and crushed into the foundations. A large steel-reinforced step and floor structure leading to a completely destroyed medical building was "deflected upward several inches and cracked". Steel trusses from some of the buildings were "rolled up like paper", and deformation or twisting of the main support beams was noted. Multiple vehicles were thrown and mangled or wrapped around trees nearby. Several 300-pound concrete parking stops anchored with rebar were torn from a parking lot in this area and thrown up to 60 yards (55 m) away. Iowa State University wind engineer Partha Sarkar calculated the force needed to remove the parking stops from the lot and found that winds exceeding 200 mph (320 km/h) would have been required. Damage became remarkably widespread and catastrophic at and around the nearby St. John's Regional Medical Center, which lost nearly every window on three sides, interior walls, ceilings, and part of its roof; its life flight helicopter was also blown away and destroyed. Loss of backup power caused five fatalities, and the nine-story building was so damaged that it was deemed structurally compromised, and later torn down. According to the NWS office in Springfield, Missouri, such extreme structural damage to such a large and well-built structure likely indicated winds at or exceeding 200 mph (320 km/h). Vehicles in the hospital parking lot were thrown into the air and mangled beyond recognition, including a semi-truck that was tossed 125 yards (114 m) and wrapped completely around a debarked tree. Small pieces of debris from the hospital, including X-rays, medical reports, and dental records, were found in Greene and Polk counties many miles to the east. Wind-rowing of debris was noted in this area, and more concrete parking stops were removed from the St. John's parking lot. Virtually every house near McClelland Boulevard and 26th Street was flattened; some were swept completely away, and trees sustained severe debarking. Peak intensity As the tornado tracked eastward, it maintained EF5 strength as it crossed Main Street (Route 43) between 20th and 26th Streets. It heavily damaged every business along that stretch and virtually destroyed several institutional buildings. It tracked just south of downtown, narrowly missing it. Entire neighborhoods were leveled in this area with some more homes swept away, and trees were stripped completely of their bark. At some residences, reinforced concrete porches were deformed or, in some cases, completely torn away. Damage to driveways was noted at some residences as well. Numerous vehicles were tossed up to several blocks, and a few homeowners never located their vehicles. A large church, a nursing home, Franklin Technology Center, St. Mary's Catholic Church and School, and Joplin High School were all destroyed along this corridor. The Greenbriar Nursing Home was completely leveled, with 21 fatalities occurring there alone, with dozens of fatalities occurring elsewhere in this area as well. No one was in the high school at the time, as the graduation ceremonies held about three miles (4.8 km) to the north at Missouri Southern State University had concluded shortly before the storm. Pieces of cardboard were found embedded in stucco walls that remained standing at Joplin High School. Steel beams and pieces of fencing were deeply embedded into the ground in fields near the high school, steel fence posts were bent to the ground in opposite directions, and a school bus was thrown into a nearby bus garage. As the tornado crossed Connecticut Avenue further to the east, it destroyed several large apartment buildings which resulted in 14 fatalities, along with a Dillons grocery store, and a bank. Only the concrete safety deposit box vault remained at the bank, and a wooden 2x4 was found speared completely through a concrete curb at one location. The tornado then approached Rangeline Road, the main commercial strip in the eastern part of Joplin, affecting additional neighborhoods along 20th Street. The now heavily rain-wrapped tornado continued at EF5 intensity as it crossed Range Line Road. In that corridor between about 13th and 32nd Streets, the tornado continued producing catastrophic damage as it reached its widest point nearly one mile (1.6 km) across. As the tornado struck a Pizza Hut on South Range Line Road, store manager Christopher Lucas herded four employees and 15 customers into a walk-in freezer. With difficulty closing the door, he wrapped a bungee cord holding the door shut around his arm until he was sucked out and killed by the tornado. The tornado completely destroyed a Walmart supercenter, a Home Depot, and numerous other businesses and restaurants in this area, many of which were flattened. Numerous metal roof trusses were torn from the Home Depot building and were found broken and mangled in nearby fields. Cars that originated at the Home Depot parking lot were found hundreds of yards away. Asphalt was scoured from parking lots at Walmart and a nearby pizza restaurant, and large tractor-trailers were thrown up to 200 yards (180 m) away. An Academy Sports + Outdoors store along Range Line sustained major structural damage, and a chair was found impaled legs-first through an exterior stucco wall there. A nearby three-story apartment complex was also devastated, and two cell phone towers collapsed. In this area, numerous cars were thrown and piled on top of each other, 100-pound (45 kg) manhole covers were removed from roads and thrown, the ground scoured, and a Pepsi distribution plant was completely leveled. Additional calculations with regards to the manhole covers by Partha Sarkar revealed that winds had to have exceeded 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) for the manhole covers to be removed. Twenty fatalities occurred in this area, and the damage was rated as EF5. Extreme damage continued in the area of Duquesne Road in southeast Joplin. Many houses and industrial and commercial buildings were flattened in this area as well. The industrial park near the corner of 20th and Duquesne was especially hard hit with nearly every building flattened. Several large metal warehouse structures were swept cleanly from their foundations, and several heavy industrial vehicles were thrown up to 400 yards (370 m) away in this area. One of the many warehouses affected was a Cummins warehouse, a concrete block and steel building that was destroyed. The last area of EF5 damage occurred in the industrial park, and a nearby Fastrip gas station and convenience store was completely destroyed. Many homes were destroyed further to the east at EF3 to EF4 strength in a nearby subdivision, and East Middle School sustained major damage. Weakening and dissipation The tornado then continued on an east to east-southeast trajectory towards I-44 where it weakened; nonetheless, vehicles were blown off the highway and mangled near US 71 (exit 11) on what is now the I-49 interchange. The damage at and around the interchange was rated EF2 to EF3. The weakening tornado continued to track into the rural areas of southeastern Jasper County and northeastern Newton County where damage was generally minor to moderate, with trees, mobile homes, outbuildings, and frame homes damaged mainly at EF0 to EF1 strength. The tornado lifted east of Diamond at 6:20 p.m. CDT (23:20 UTC), according to aerial surveys. The total track length was 21.62 miles (34.79 km) long, and the tornado was up to one mile (1.6 km) across at its widest point. A total of 158 people were killed, and over 1,150 others were injured along the path. A separate EF2 tornado touched down near Wentworth from the same supercell about 25 miles (40 km) east-southeast of Joplin, beginning roughly 10 minutes before the dissipation of this tornado. Aftermath and impact A preliminary survey of the tornado damage by the NWS office in Springfield began on May 23. The initial survey confirmed a violent tornado rated as a high-end EF4. Subsequent damage surveys, however, found evidence of more intense damage, and so the tornado was upgraded to an EF5 with estimated winds over 200 mph (320 km/h), peaking at 225 to 250 mph (360 to 400 km/h). The scope of the damage was immense: according to the local branch of the American Red Cross, about 25% of Joplin was destroyed, though emergency officials reported some level of damage to about 75% of the city. A week after the tornado, Joplin's mayor estimated that 25% of the businesses licensed in the city were damaged or destroyed. Official accountings of the precise number of buildings damaged or destroyed vary somewhat. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) technical report, in total 7,964 buildings were damaged in Joplin, including 7,411 residential buildings and 553 non-residential. At least 3,734 of those buildings (including 3,181 of the residential and all 553 of the non-residential buildings) sustained so much damage as to be considered destroyed.: 77  According to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) study, 8,264 homes were impacted, and of those, 3,884 were "significantly damaged" and 4,380 were destroyed.: 8 Infrastructure The tornado also severely damaged critical infrastructure in the city, hampering emergency response and recovery efforts. Approximately 4,000 electricity distribution poles were damaged, more than 110 miles (180 km) of distribution line brought down, 135 transmission towers "affected," and an electrical substation in the path of the tornado was completely destroyed (two more were damaged, but reparably so). In the immediate aftermath of the storm, approximately 20,000 people were left without power, and those with homes left intact could not get it restored until 10–12 days later, when their dwellings were approved for safe occupancy. The ultimate cost of rebuilding Joplin's damaged electricity system was calculated at $25.7 million.: 222–224  The tornado also caused about 4,000 leaks in water service lines, dropping Joplin's water system pressure below operating level and necessitating a block-by-block effort to find and repair the service line leaks, with a water boil order issued for the entire city in the meantime. Water pressure was returned to normal outside of the damage area within 48 hours, and the water boil order was lifted after five and a half days.: 224–226  Approximately 3,500 gas meters and 55,000 feet (17,000 m) of gas main were damaged, and it took two weeks to stem every gas leak; some damaged mains could not be shut off because they served critical facilities like Freeman Health System, the lone remaining hospital in Joplin.: 226  In east Joplin, 3,000–5,000 pounds (1,400–2,300 kg) of anhydrous ammonia was released from a valve at a trucking facility and quickly contained; no significant toxic releases occurred. With 21 cell towers down and fiber cables damaged, cellular communications—voice calls in particular, text messages less so—were heavily impeded. Temporary mobile cell towers were deployed by wireless carriers to fill the gap within 24 hours.: 226  By May 24, three towers owned by AT&T and Sprint had been restored. Insurance An early estimate from catastrophe risk modeling firm Eqecat, Inc. placed the insured losses from the tornado at $1–3 billion USD. By mid-June, more than 19,000 insurance claims had been filed, a number that eventually rose to 61,000, with a total payout of more than $2 billion—31% going to homeowners and 5% to those who lost vehicles. The impact on the insurance industry was not so much due to the number of claims, but the cumulative effect of such a large number of total losses. More than 2,500 local people employed in insurance were involved in some capacity. It was presumed that State Farm would assume the largest share of these losses, having market share of 27% for homeowners insurance and 21% for automobile insurance. The $2.8 billion in damage is the largest amount for a tornado since 1950. Casualties As of May 2013, the official death toll from NWS was listed at 158 while the City of Joplin listed the death toll at 161 (158 direct). The list was up to 162, until one man's injuries were found to be unrelated to the event. In one indirect fatality, a policeman was struck by lightning and killed while assisting with recovery and cleanup efforts the day after the storm. Another five indirect fatalities occurred after a disease outbreak of mucormycosis infected 13 people, possibly 18 people. Shortly after the tornado, authorities had listed 1,300 people as missing, but the number quickly dwindled as they were accounted for. Many people were reported to have been trapped in destroyed houses. Seventeen people were rescued from the rubble the day after the tornado struck. Of 146 sets of remains recovered from the rubble, 134 victims had been positively identified by June 1. This total included four sets of partial remains, some of which may have been from a single person. On June 2, it was announced that four more victims had died. Six people were killed when St. John's Regional Medical Center was struck by the tornado. Five of those deaths were patients on ventilators who died after the building lost power and a backup generator did not work. The sixth fatality was a hospital visitor. The Joplin Globe reported that 54% of the people killed died in their residences, 32% died in non-residential areas and 14% died in vehicles or outdoors. Joplin officials after the tornado announced plans to require hurricane ties or other fasteners between the houses and their foundations (devices add about US$600 to the construction costs). Officials rejected a proposal to require concrete basements in new houses. Officials noted that as of 2009, only 28% of Joplin's new homes had basements, compared with 38% two decades before. At least 1,150 people were injured severely enough to seek treatment at regional hospitals. Injuries ranged from cuts and bruises to impalement by large debris. Officials said they rescued 944 pets and reunited 292 with owners. Rating dispute In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers published a study disputing the tornado's initial EF5 rating, based on surveying damage on over 150 structures within a six-mile segment of the storm's path. According to the report, over 83% of the damage was caused by wind speeds of 135 mph (217 km/h) or less, the maximum wind speed of an EF2 tornado. An additional 13% was caused by EF3 wind speeds, and 3% was consistent with EF4 winds. The study found no damage consistent with wind speeds over 200 mph (320 km/h), the minimum threshold of an EF5 tornado. Researchers concluded that the inability to find EF5 damage was due to the absence of construction standards that were able to determine the necessary wind speeds. Bill Colbourne, a member of the engineering team that surveyed the damage, declared that "a relatively large number of buildings could have survived in Joplin if they had been built to sustain hurricane winds." However, the EF5 rating stood. The NWS office in Springfield stated that their survey teams found only a small area of EF5 structural damage, and that it could have easily been missed in the survey (at and around St. John's Medical Center). Bill Davis, head of Springfield's NWS office, said that the results of the study "do not surprise me at all," adding that "there was only a very small area of EF5 damage in Joplin...we knew right off the bat there was EF4 damage. It took us longer to identify the EF5 damage and that it would take winds of over 200 mph (320 km/h) to do that damage." Additionally, the basis for the EF5 rating in Joplin was mainly contextual rather than structural, with non-conventional damage indicators such as the removal of concrete parking stops, manhole covers, reinforced concrete porches, driveways, and asphalt used to arrive at a final rating. The presence of wind rowed structural debris, instances of very large vehicles such as buses, vans, and semi-trucks being thrown hundreds of yards to several blocks from their points of origin, the fact that some homeowners never located their vehicles, and the overwhelming extent and totality of the destruction in Joplin were also taken into consideration. According to a detailed damage survey by Timothy Marshall, a majority of houses were destroyed at winds of EF2-3 strength. However he identified 22 well anchored houses which were assigned EF5 ratings. Response Immediately following the disaster, emergency responders were deployed within and to the city to undertake search and rescue efforts. Then Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency for the Joplin area shortly after the tornado hit, and ordered Missouri National Guard troops to the city. By May 23, Missouri Task Force One (consisting of 85 personnel, four dogs, and heavy equipment) arrived and began searching for missing persons. Five heavy rescue teams were also sent to the city a day later. Within two days, numerous agencies arrived to assist residents in the recovery process. The National Guard deployed 191 personnel and placed 2,000 more on standby to be deployed if needed. In addition, the Missouri State Highway Patrol provided 180 troopers to assist the Joplin Police Department and other local agencies with law enforcement, rescue, and recovery efforts that also included the deployment of five ambulance strike teams, and a total of 25 ambulances in the affected area on May 24 as well over 75 Marines from the Ft. Leonard Wood Army base. Due to the severe damage caused by the tornado, the traveling Piccadilly Circus was unable to perform as scheduled. As a result, the circus employees brought their two adult elephants to help drag damaged automobiles and other heavy debris out of the streets. Despite the destruction, two Waffle House locations in Joplin remained open following the tornado. This led Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate to develop the concept of the Waffle House Index for measuring disaster impact. In May 2012, the Missouri National Guard released documents showing that four soldiers looted consumer electronics from a ruined Walmart during efforts to locate survivors the day after the tornado. According to the investigative memo, they believed the merchandise was going to be destroyed. All four soldiers were demoted and had letters of reprimand placed in their personnel files, but were never prosecuted, though many civilian looters were. Cleanup The Joplin tornado generated an estimated 3 million cubic yards of debris, an amount sufficient to cover a football field 120 stories high.: 19  Removal efforts lasted for months, and at their height more than 410 trucks a day transported debris to landfills in Joplin itself, as well as nearby Galena and Lamar. The tornado also led to renewed lead contamination on many Joplin properties. Joplin had been the site of lead mining and processing for decades before cleanup efforts began in the mid-1990s, and the tornado's upheaval of the surface as it swept houses from foundations and uprooted trees re-contaminated about 40% of yards in southern Joplin, leaving behind chunks of raw lead ore the size of tennis or golf balls. The city spent more than $5 million to clean the properties up using grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, scraping off the topsoil and replacing it with clean soil, and further required that builders in the damage area test for lead and clean it up before construction. Social media response The tornado also highlighted a new form of disaster response, using social media. This type of disaster response is now known as Social Media Emergency Management. News outlets began aggregating images and video from eyewitnesses shared through social media. Public citizen-led Facebook groups and web sites coordinated information, needs, and offers. The results were so effective the project became a finalist in the 2011 Mashable Awards for Best Social Good Cause Campaign. National attention President Barack Obama toured the community on May 29, flying into Joplin Regional Airport and speaking at a memorial at the Taylor Performing Arts Center at Missouri Southern State University about two miles (3.2 km) north of the worst of the devastation. Obama had been on a state visit to Europe at the time of the storm. Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church were also scheduled to protest the same day in Joplin, but they did not show up. There was a massive counterprotest that was organized in response to the Westboro protest, in which thousands of protesters showed up holding signs saying, "God Loves Joplin" and "We Support You Joplin." President Obama also delivered the commencement address at Joplin High School on May 21, 2012, a year after the tornado. Rebuilding and recovery FEMA maintained a large presence in Joplin following the tornado, with as many as 820 employees working in the city. One FEMA undertaking was the construction of 15 temporary housing sites in and around Joplin, which housed 586 families/households at their peak. The city, warned by federal officials that it should expect to lose 25% of its population following the tornado, responded quickly and built an average of five houses a week between 2011 and 2022. Most businesses reopened, and more than 300 new businesses opened between 2011 and early 2016. In April 2012, Joplin voters approved a $62 million bond to continue constructing new schools and repair damaged existing ones. Engineers criticized the tilt-up construction of the Home Depot building, in which all but two of the walls collapsed in a domino effect after the tornado lifted the roof, killing seven people in the front of the store (although 28 people in the back of the store survived when those walls collapsed outwards). Home Depot officials disagreed with the study published by The Kansas City Star and said they would use the tilt-up practice when they rebuilt the Joplin store. On June 1, the Home Depot said it would have a new temporary 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m2) building erected and operational within two weeks. In the meantime, it opened for business in the parking lot of its demolished building. On June 20, the Home Depot opened a temporary 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m2) building constructed by the company's disaster recovery team. Within two years, the city's workers and community groups compiled and published "Joplin Pays it Forward" to give recovery advice to other places struck by disasters. Many homes and businesses have been rebuilt since the tornado. Joplin High School was reopened on September 2, 2014. St. John's Regional Medical Center (now Mercy Hospital) had to be rebuilt and reopened in 2015. Mental health impacts Eighteen people committed suicide in the wake of the tornado, according to the executive director of the Community Clinic of Southwest Missouri, a co-chair of the city's long-term recovery team. Calls about domestic violence grew in the year following the disaster. In 2024, Jennifer M. First, J. Brian Houston, and Sangwon Lee with the University of Tennessee along with Megan Carnahan and Mansoo Yu with the University of Missouri, published a qualitative case study of survivors from the tornado, in which they described how survivors recovered from "tornado brain". In the paper, they stated approximately 41% of the residents of Joplin were directly impacted by the tornado and that the tornado lead to "various mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder". In popular culture A number of documentaries have been produced about the Joplin tornado and its effects on the city. These include Heartland: A Portrait of Survival, directed by Erica Tremblay and featured at the Omaha Film Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival, as well as Deadline in Disaster (directed by Beth Pike), which followed the staff of The Joplin Globe in the tornado's aftermath and received a regional Emmy in the Documentary-Cultural category during the 37th Mid-America Emmy Awards. In October 2011, The Joplin Globe released a hard-cover pictorial book entitled 32 Minutes in May: The Joplin Tornado. See also List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks List of F5 and EF5 tornadoes List of tornadoes causing 100 or more deaths Tornado intensity and damage Tornado records 1925 Tri-State tornado 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado Notes References Further reading Van Leer, Kevin (2013). "Storm mergers and their role in tornado genesis during the 2011 Joplin storm". M.S. Thesis. hdl:2142/44134. External links Tornado, Joplin, Missouri, 2011 from (National Institute of Standards and Technology) NOAA's Aerial Survey of Joplin, Missouri Time-lapse visualization of the May 22 tornado outbreak Radar loop of the Joplin tornado Slideshow of damage from the tornado OPT: One Year After the Joplin Tornado Archived February 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine 2011 Joplin EF5 Tornado: Unedited broadcast beginning 9 minutes before historic disaster unfolded.

2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019, with 47,567,752 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament election. Having lost their parliamentary majority at the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The prime minister, Theresa May, resigned in July 2019 after repeatedly failing to pass her Brexit withdrawal agreement in parliament. Johnson succeeded her as the leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister in July 2019. Johnson could not persuade Parliament to approve a revised withdrawal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call a snap election, which the House of Commons supported under the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019. Opinion polls showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against the opposition Labour Party throughout the campaign. The Conservatives won 365 seats, their highest number and proportion since the 1987 general election, and recorded their highest share of the popular vote since 1979; many of their gains were made in seats once considered previously safe for Labour, dubbed the red wall, which had voted strongly in favour of British withdrawal from the EU in the 2016 European Union (EU) membership referendum. Labour won 202 seats, its fewest since the 1935 general election. The Scottish National Party (SNP) made a net gain of 13 seats with 45 per cent of the vote in Scotland, winning 48 of the 59 seats there. The Liberal Democrats increased their vote share to 11.6 per cent, but won only 11 seats, a net loss of one since the last election. The party's leader, Jo Swinson, lost her seat to the SNP, thus triggering the 2020 party leadership election, which was won by Ed Davey. The DUP won a plurality of seats in Northern Ireland. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) regained parliamentary representation as the DUP lost seats. The election result gave Johnson the mandate he sought from the electorate to formally implement the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and to complete the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 on 31 January 2020. Jeremy Corbyn, Labour's leader at the election, resigned triggering the 2020 party leadership election, which was won by his shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer. Jane Dodds, the Liberal Democrats' leader in Wales, was also unseated in Brecon and Radnorshire. In Northern Ireland, Irish nationalist MPs outnumbered unionists for the first time, although the unionist popular vote remained higher at 43.1 per cent, and the seven Sinn Féin MPs did not take their seats due to their tradition of abstentionism. Despite being elected with a landslide, Johnson would resign amid a government crisis in 2022, being followed by Liz Truss for fifty days and then by Rishi Sunak, who would lead the Conservatives in the subsequent election. Background In July 2016, Theresa May was elected Prime Minister to succeed David Cameron, who had resigned following the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Conservative Party had governed since the 2010 general election, initially in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and then alone with a small majority following the 2015 general election. In the 2017 general election, May lost her majority but was able to resume office as a result of a confidence and supply agreement with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), known as the Conservative–DUP agreement. In the face of opposition from the DUP and Conservative backbenchers, the second May ministry was unable to pass its Brexit withdrawal agreement by 29 March 2019, so some political commentators considered that an early general election was likely. The opposition Labour Party called for a 2019 vote of confidence in the May ministry but the motion, held in January, failed. May resigned following her party's poor performance in the 2019 European Parliament election during the first extension granted by the European Union for negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. Boris Johnson won the 2019 Conservative leadership election and became the prime minister on 24 July 2019. Along with attempting to revise the withdrawal agreement arranged by his predecessor's negotiations, Johnson made three attempts to hold a snap election under the process defined in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which required a two-thirds supermajority in order for an election to take place. All three attempts to call an election failed to gain support; Parliament insisted that Johnson "take a no-deal Brexit off the table first" and secure a negotiated Withdrawal Agreement, expressed in particular by its enactment against his will of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019, often called the Benn Act, after Labour MP Hilary Benn, who introduced the bill. After failing to pass a revised deal before the first extension's deadline of 31 October 2019, Johnson agreed to a second extension on negotiations with the European Union and finally secured a revised withdrawal agreement. Parliament agreed to an election through a motion proposed by the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party (SNP) on 28 October. The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 (EPGEA) was passed in the House of Commons by 438 votes to 20; an attempt to pass an amendment by opposition parties for the election to be held on 9 December failed by 315 votes to 295. The House of Lords followed suit on 30 October, with royal assent made the day after for the ratification of the EPGEA. Date of the election The deadline for candidate nominations was 14 November 2019, with political campaigning for four weeks until polling day on 12 December. On the day of the election, polling stations across the country were open from 7 am, and closed at 10 pm. The date chosen for the 2019 general election made it the first to be held in December since the 1923 general election. Voting eligibility Individuals eligible to vote had to be registered to vote by midnight on 26 November. To be eligible to vote, individuals had to be aged 18 or over; residing as an Irish or Commonwealth citizen at an address in the United Kingdom, or be a British citizen overseas who registered to vote in the last 15 years; and not legally excluded (on grounds of detainment in prison, a mental hospital, or on the run from law enforcement), or disqualified from voting. Anyone who qualified as an anonymous elector had until midnight on 6 December to register. Timetable Contesting political parties and candidates Most candidates are representatives of a political party, which must be registered with the Electoral Commission's Register. Those who do not belong to one must use the label Independent or none. In the 2019 election 3,415 candidates stood: 206 being independents, the rest representing one of 68 political parties. Campaign Campaign background The Conservative Party and Labour Party have been the two biggest political parties, and have supplied every Prime Minister since the 1922 general election. The Conservative Party have governed since the 2010 election, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats from 2010 to 2015. At the 2015 general election, the Conservative Party committed to offering a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union (EU) and won a majority in that election. A referendum was held in June 2016, and the Leave campaign won by 51.9% to 48.1%. United Kingdom invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union came in March 2017, and Theresa May triggered a snap election in 2017, in order to demonstrate support for her planned negotiation of Brexit. Instead, the Conservative Party lost seats. They won a plurality of MPs but not a majority, and the result was a hung parliament. They formed a minority government, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as their confidence and supply partner. Neither May nor her successor Boris Johnson, the winner of the 2019 Conservative leadership election, was able to secure parliamentary support either for a deal on the terms of the country's exit from the EU, or for exiting the EU without an agreed deal. Johnson later succeeded in bringing his withdrawal agreement to a second reading in Parliament, following another extension until January 2020. After Johnson's 2019 win, a new Withdrawal Agreement Bill was introduced in 2020. Compared to its 2019 October predecessor, this bill offered, in the words of political scientist Meg Russell, "significantly weaker parliamentary oversight of Brexit ... giving parliament no formal role in agreeing the future relationship negotiating objectives, and a diminished role in approving any resulting treaty." During the lifespan of the 2017 Parliament, twenty MPs resigned from their parties, mostly due to disputes with their party leaderships; some formed new parties and alliances. In February 2019, eight Labour and three Conservative MPs left their parties to sit together as The Independent Group. Having undergone a split and two name changes, at dissolution, this group numbered five MPs who sat as the registered party The Independent Group for Change under the leadership of Anna Soubry. Two MPs sat in a group called The Independents, which at its peak had five members. One MP created the Birkenhead Social Justice Party, while a further 20 MPs who began as Labour or Conservative ended Parliament as unaffiliated independents. Seven MPs, from both the Conservatives and Labour, joined the Liberal Democrats during Parliament, in combination with a gain after the 2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election. By the time Parliament was dissolved, the Liberal Democrats had raised their number from 12 at the election to 20 at dissolution. One reason for the defections from the Labour Party was the ongoing row over alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party. Labour entered the election campaign while under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Jewish Labour Movement declared that it would not generally campaign for Labour. The Conservative Party was also criticised for not doing enough to tackle the alleged Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. The Conservatives ended the previous parliamentary period with fewer seats than they had started with because of defections and also saw the 2019 suspension of rebel Conservative MPs for going against the party line by voting to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Of the 21 expelled, 10 were subsequently reinstated, while the others continued as independents. Policy positions Brexit The major parties had a wide variety of stances on Brexit. The Conservative Party supported leaving under the terms of the withdrawal agreement as negotiated by Johnson (amending May's previous agreement), and this agreement formed a central part of the Conservative campaign via the slogan "Get Brexit Done". The Brexit Party was in favour of a no-deal Brexit, with its leader Nigel Farage calling for Johnson to drop the deal. The Conservative manifesto read "If we elect a majority of Conservative MPs to Parliament, we will start putting our deal through Parliament before Christmas and we will leave the European Union in January" which ultimately happened. The Labour Party proposed a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement, towards a closer post-withdrawal relationship with the EU, and would then put this forward as an option in a referendum alongside the option of remaining in the EU. The Labour Party's campaigning stance in that referendum would be decided at a special conference. In a Question Time special featuring four party leaders, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that he would stay neutral in the referendum campaign. The Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, The Independent Group for Change, and the Green Party of England and Wales were all opposed to Brexit, and proposed that a further referendum be held with the option, for which they would campaign, to remain in the EU. The Liberal Democrats originally pledged that if they formed a majority government, which was considered a highly unlikely outcome by observers, they would revoke the Article 50 notification immediately and cancel Brexit. Part-way through the campaign, the Liberal Democrats dropped the policy of revoking Article 50 after the party realised it was not going to win a majority in the election. The Democratic Unionist Party was in favour of a withdrawal agreement in principle but opposed the deals negotiated by both May and Johnson, believing that they created too great a divide between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland all favoured remaining in the EU. The UUP did not see a second referendum as a necessary route to achieving this goal. The environment The Labour Party promised what they described as a green industrial revolution. This included support for renewable energies and a promise to plant 2 billion trees by 2040. The party also promised to transition to electrify the United Kingdom's bus fleet by 2030. The Liberal Democrats promised to put the environment at the heart of their agenda with a promise to plant 60 million trees a year. They promised to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030 and hit zero carbon emissions by 2045. By 2030, they planned to generate 80% of the country's energy needs from renewable energies such as solar power and wind and retrofit 26 million homes with insulation by 2030. They also promised to build more environmentally friendly homes and to establish a new Department for the Climate Crisis. The Conservatives pledged net zero emissions by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution. They also pledged to plant 30 million trees and boost wind and solar energy. Tax and spending commitments In September 2019, the Conservative government performed a spending review, where they announced plans to increase public spending by £13.8 billion a year, and reaffirmed plans to spend another £33.9 billion a year on the National Health Service (NHS) by 2023. Chancellor Sajid Javid said the government had turned the page on 10 years of austerity in the United Kingdom. During the election, the parties produced manifestos that outlined spending in addition to that already planned. The Conservative Party manifesto was described as having "little in the way of changes to tax" by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The decision to keep the rate of corporation tax at 19%, and not reduce it to 17% as planned, was expected to raise £6 billion a year. The plan to increase the national insurance threshold for employees and self-employed to £9,500 would cost £2 billion a year. They committed to not raise rates of income tax, National Insurance, or VAT. There were increased spending commitments of £3 billion current spending and £8 billion investment spending. Overall, this would have led to the country's debt as a percentage of GDP remaining stable. The IFS assessed that it would rise in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Labour Party manifesto planned to raise an extra £78 billion a year from taxes over the course of Parliament, with sources including: £24bn – raising the headline rate of corporation tax to 26% £6.3bn – tax the global profits of multinationals according to the United Kingdom's share of global employment, assets, and sales, not British profits £4.0bn – abolish patent box and R&D tax credit for large companies £4.3bn – cutting unspecified corporation tax reliefs £9bn – financial transactions tax £14bn – dividends and capital gains £6bn – anti-avoidance £5bn – increases in income tax rates above £80,000 a year £5bn – other In addition, Labour was to obtain income from the Inclusive Ownership Fund, windfall tax on oil companies, and some smaller tax changes. There were increased spending commitments of £98 billion current spending and £55 billion investment spending. Overall, this would have led to the national debt as a percentage of GDP rising. Labour's John McDonnell said borrowing would only be for investment and one-offs (e.g. compensating WASPI women, not shown above), and not for day-to-day spending. The Liberal Democrats manifesto planned to raise an extra £36 billion per year from taxes over the course of Parliament, with sources including: £10bn – raising corporation tax to 20% £7bn – 1% point rise in all rates of income tax £5bn – abolish the capital gains tax allowance £5bn – air passenger duty on frequent flyers £6bn – anti-avoidance £3bn – other There were increased commitments of £37 billion current spending and £26 billion investment spending, which would overall lead to the debt as a percentage of GDP falling, partly due to improved economic conditions which would result from staying in the EU. Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), an influential research body, released on 28 November its in-depth analysis of the manifestos of the three main national political parties. The analysis provided a summary of the financial promises made by each party and an inspection of the accuracy of claims around government income and expenditure. The IFS reported that neither the Conservatives nor the Labour Party had published a "properly credible prospectus". Its analysis of the Conservative manifesto concluded there was "essentially nothing new in the manifesto", that there was "little in the way of changes to tax, spending, welfare or anything else", and that they had already promised increased spending for health and education whilst in government. The Labour manifesto was described as introducing "enormous economic and social change", and increasing the role of the state to be bigger than anything in the last 40 years. The IFS highlighted a raft of changes in including free childcare, university, personal care, and prescriptions, as well as nationalisations, labour market regulations, increases in the minimum wage, and enforcing "effective ownership of 10% of large companies from current owners to a combination of employees and government". The IFS said that Labour's vision "is of a state not so dissimilar to those seen in many other successful Western European economies", and presumed that the manifesto should be seen as "a long-term prospectus for change rather than a realistic deliverable plan for a five-year parliament". They said that the Liberal Democrats manifesto was not as radical as the Labour manifesto but was a "decisive move away from the policies of the past decade". The Conservative manifesto was criticised for a commitment not to raise rates of income tax, National Insurance, or VAT, as this put a significant constraint on reactions to events that might affect government finances. One such event could be the "die in a ditch" promise to terminate the Brexit transition period by the end of 2020, which risked harming the economy. The IFS also stated that it is "highly likely" spending under a Conservative government would be higher than in that party's manifesto, partly due to a number of uncosted commitments. Outside of commitments to the NHS, the proposals would leave public service spending 14% lower in 2023–2024 than it was in 2010–2011, which the IFS described as "no more austerity perhaps, but an awful lot of it baked in". The IFS stated it had "serious doubt" that tax rises proposed would raise the amount Labour suggested, and said that they would need to introduce more broad based tax increases. They assessed that the public sector does not have the capacity to increase investment spending as Labour would want. The IFS further assessed the claim that tax rises would only hit the top 5% of earners as "certainly progressive" but "clearly not true", with those under that threshold impacted by changes to the marriage allowance, taxes on dividends, or capital gains, and lower wages or higher prices that might be passed on from corporation tax changes. Some of Labour's proposals were described as "huge and complex undertakings", where significant care is required in implementation. The IFS was particularly critical of the policy to compensate the WASPI women, announced after the manifesto, which was a £58bn promise to women who are "relatively well off on average" and would result in public finances going off target. They said that Labour's manifesto would not increase UK public spending as a share of national income above Germany. They found that Labour's plan to spend and invest would boost economic growth but that the impact of tax rises, government regulation, nationalisations, and the inclusive ownership fund could reduce growth, meaning the overall impact of Labour's plan on growth was uncertain. The IFS described the plans of the Liberal Democrats as a radical tax and spend package, and said that the proposals would require lower borrowing than Conservative or Labour plans. The report said they were the only party whose proposals would put debt "on a decisively downward path", praising their plan to put 1p on income tax to go to the NHS as "simple, progressive and would raise a secure level of revenue". The IFS also said plans to "virtually quintuple" current spending levels on universal free childcare amounted to "creating a whole new leg of the universal welfare state". The IFS said that the SNP's manifesto was not costed. Their proposals on spending increases and tax cuts would mean the government would have to borrow to cover day-to-day spending. They concluded that the SNP's plans for Scottish independence would likely require increased austerity. Other issues The Conservatives proposed increasing spending on public services, including the NHS and education. They also proposed increased funding for childcare and on the environment. They proposed more funding for care services and to work with other parties on reforming how care is delivered. They wished to maintain the triple lock on pensions. They proposed investing in local infrastructure, including rail, bus, cycle, and electric cars. They pledged to build a high speed new rail line between Leeds and Manchester. Labour proposed significantly increasing government spending to 45% of national output, which would be high compared to most of British history. This was to pay for an increased NHS budget; stopping state pension age rises; introducing a National Care Service providing free personal care; move to a net-zero carbon economy by the 2030s; nationalising key industries; scrapping Universal Credit; free bus travel for under-25s; building 100,000 council houses per year; and other proposals. Within this, the Labour Party proposed to take rail-operating companies, energy supply networks, Royal Mail, sewerage infrastructure, and England's private water companies back into public ownership. Labour proposed nationalising part of the BT Group and to provide free broadband to everyone, along with free education for six years during each person's adult life. Over a decade, Labour planned to reduce the average full-time weekly working hours to 32, with resulting productivity increases facilitating no loss of pay. Labour's spending plans were endorsed by more than 160 economists and academics and characterised as a "serious programme" to deal with internal problems. The main priority of the Liberal Democrats was opposing Brexit. Other policies included increased spending on the NHS; free childcare for two-to-four-year-olds; recruiting 20,000 more teachers; generating 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030; freezing train fares; and legalising cannabis. The Brexit Party was also focused on Brexit. It opposed privatising the NHS. It sought to reduce immigration, cutting net migration to 50,000 per year; cutting VAT on domestic fuel; banning the exporting of waste; free broadband in deprived regions; scrapping the BBC licence fee; and abolishing inheritance tax, interest on student loans, and High Speed 2. It also wanted to move to a United States-style supreme court. The policies of the SNP included a second referendum on Scottish independence to be held in 2020, as well as one on Brexit, removing the Trident nuclear deterrent, and devolution across issues like as employment law, drug policy, and migration. The Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP, and Labour all supported a ban on fracking in the United Kingdom, whilst the Conservatives proposed approving fracking on a case-by-case basis. Party positions in the event of a hung parliament The Conservatives and Labour insisted they were on course for outright majorities, while smaller parties were quizzed about what they would do in the event of a hung parliament. The Liberal Democrats said that they would not actively support Johnson or Corbyn becoming Prime Minister but that they could, if an alternative could not be achieved, abstain on votes allowing a minority government to form if there was support for a second referendum on Brexit. The SNP ruled out either supporting the Conservatives or a coalition with Labour but spoke about a looser form of support, such as a confidence and supply arrangement with the latter, if they supported a second referendum on Scottish independence. The DUP previously supported the Conservative government but withdrew that support given their opposition to Johnson's proposed Brexit deal. It said that it would never support Corbyn as prime minister but could work with Labour if that party were led by someone else. Labour's position on a hung parliament was that it would do no deals with any other party, citing Corbyn to say: "We are out here to win it." At the same time, it was prepared to adopt key policies proposed by the SNP and Liberal Democrats to woo them into supporting a minority government. The UUP said they would never support Corbyn as prime minister, with their leader Steve Aiken also saying that he "can't really see" any situation in which they would support a Conservative government either. Their focus would be on remaining in the EU. Tactical voting Under the first-past-the-post electoral system, there is often concern, especially in marginal seats, that if voters of similar ideological leanings are split between multiple different parties they may allow a victory for a candidate with significantly different views. In the early stages of the campaign, there was considerable discussion of tactical voting, generally in the context of support or opposition to Brexit, and whether parties would stand in all seats or not. There were various electoral pacts and unilateral decisions. The Brexit Party chose not to stand against sitting Conservative candidates but stood in most other constituencies. The Brexit Party alleged that pressure was put on its candidates by the Conservatives to withdraw, including the offer of peerages, which would be illegal. This was denied by the Conservative Party. Under the banner of Unite to Remain, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party of England and Wales agreed an electoral pact in some seats; some commentators criticised the Liberal Democrats for not standing down in some Labour seats. A number of tactical voting websites were set up in an attempt to help voters choose the candidate in their constituency who would be best placed to beat the Conservative one. The websites did not always give the same advice, which Michael Savage, political editor of The Guardian, said had the potential to confuse voters. One of the websites, named GetVoting.org and set up by Best for Britain, was accused of giving bogus advice in Labour/Conservative marginal seats. The website, which had links to the Liberal Democrats, was criticised for advising pro-Remain voters to back the Liberal Democrats, when doing so risked pulling voters away from Labour candidates and enabling the Conservative candidate to gain most votes. The website changed their controversial recommendation in Kensington to Labour, which had won it in 2017 by 20 votes, and lined up with Tacticalvote.co.uk in this seat. Describing itself as a progressive grassroots campaign not affiliated with any political party, Tacticalvote.co.uk was previously known as Tactical2017. Gina Miller's Remain United and People's Vote kept their recommendation for the Liberal Democrats. This caused a lot of confusion around tactical voting, as it was reported that the sites did not match one another's advice. Further into the election period, tactical voting websites that relied on multilevel regression with poststratification, such as Best for Britain, People's Vote, Remain United, and Survation, changed their recommendations on other seats because of new data. The effectiveness of their tactical voting has also been questioned, and the loss of Kensington, which was a Labour gain in 2017, was blamed by Labour MPs on Liberal Democrats for splitting the vote. In the final weekend before voting, The Guardian cited a poll suggesting that the Conservative Party held a 15% lead over Labour; on the same day, the Conservative-backing Daily Telegraph emphasised a poll indicating a lower 8% lead. Senior opposition politicians from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP launched a late-stage appeal to anti-Conservative voters to consider switching allegiance in the general election, amid signs that tactical voting in a relatively small number of marginal seats could deprive Johnson of a majority in parliament. Shortly before the election, The Observer newspaper recommended Remainers tactically vote for 50 Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, and independent candidates across Great Britain; of these, 13 triumphed, 9 of which were SNP gains in Scotland (in line with a broader trend of relative success for the party), along with four in England divided equally between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The pollster responsible argued in the aftermath that the unpopularity of the Labour leadership limited the effectiveness of tactical voting. Other research suggested it would have taken 78% of people voting tactically to prevent a Conservative majority completely, and it would not have been possible to deliver a Labour majority. Canvassing and leafleting Predictions of an overall Conservative majority were based on their targeting of primarily Labour-held, Brexit-backing seats in the Midlands and the north of England. At the start of the election period, Labour-supporting organisation Momentum held what was described as "the largest mobilising call in UK history", involving more than 2,000 canvassers. The organisation challenged Labour supporters to devote a week or more to campaigning full-time; by 4 December, 1,400 people had signed up. Momentum also developed an app called My Campaign Map that updated members about where they could be more effective, particularly in canvassing in marginal constituencies. Over one weekend during the campaign period, 700 Labour supporters campaigned in Iain Duncan Smith's constituency, Chingford and Woodford Green, which was regarded as a marginal, with a majority of 2,438 votes at the 2017 general election. The Liberal Democrats were considered possible winners of a number of Conservative-held southern English constituencies; a large swing was postulated that might even topple Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton. At the beginning of the 2019 campaign, they had been accused of attempting to mislead voters by using selective opinion polling data, and use of a quotation attributed to The Guardian rather than to their leader Jo Swinson. They were also accused of making campaign leaflets look like newspapers, although this practice had been used by all major British political parties for many years, including by Labour and the Conservatives during this election. The Liberal Democrats won a court case stopping the SNP from distributing a "potentially defamatory" leaflet in Swinson's constituency over false claims about funding she had received. Two Labour Party campaigners, both in their seventies, were verbally abused and physically assaulted in separate attacks on the weekend of 23–24 November. One attack occurred in Bromyard, Herefordshire, and the other in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Party officials in Bromyard, where Labour campaigners experienced red-baiting and had been called "Marxists", decided that activists should only canvass in pairs. Online campaigning The use of social media advertising was seen as particularly useful to political parties as it could be used to target people of particular demographics. Labour was reported to have the most interactions, with The Times describing Labour's "aggressive, anti-establishment messages" as "beating clever Tory memes". In the first week of November, Labour was reported to have four of the five most liked tweets by political parties, many of the top interactions of Facebook posts, as well as doing very well on Instagram, where younger voters are particularly active. Bloomberg News reported that between 6 and 21 November the views on Twitter/Facebook were 18.7/31.0 million for Labour, 10/15.5 million for the Conservatives, 2.9/2.0 million for the Brexit Party, and 0.4/1.4 million for the Liberal Democrats. Brexit was the most tweeted topic for the Conservative Party (~45% of tweets), the Liberal Democrats, and the Brexit Party (~40% each). Labour focused on health care (24.1%), the environment, and business, mentioning Brexit in less than 5 per cent of its tweets. Devolution was the topic most tweeted about by the SNP (29.8%) and Plaid Cymru (21.4%), and the environment was the top issue for the Green Party (45.9%) on Twitter. The Conservatives were unique in their focus on taxation (16.2%), and the Brexit Party on defence (14%). Prior to the campaign, the Conservatives contracted New Zealand marketing agency Topham Guerin, which had been credited with helping Australia's Liberal–National Coalition unexpectedly win the 2019 Australian federal election. The agency's social media approach was described as purposefully posting badly-designed social media material that becomes viral and so would be seen by a wider audience. Some of the Conservative social media activity created headlines challenging whether it was deceptive, including by the BBC, amid disinformation concerns. This included editing a clip of Keir Starmer to give the appearance that he was unable to answer a question about Labour's Brexit policy. In response to criticism over the doctored Starmer footage, Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly said the clip of Starmer was satire and "obviously edited". Veracity of statements by political parties During the 19 November debate between Johnson and Corbyn hosted by ITV, the press office of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) re-branded their Twitter account (@CCHQPress) as factcheckUK (with "from CCHQ" in small text appearing underneath the logo in the account's banner image), which critics suggested could be mistaken for that of an independent fact-checking body, and published posts supporting the Conservative's position. In defence, Conservative chairman Cleverly stated: "The Twitter handle of the CCHQ press office remained CCHQPress, so it's clear the nature of the site", and as "calling out when the Labour Party put what they know to be complete fabrications in the public domain." In response to the re-branding on Twitter, the Electoral Commission, which does not have a role in regulating election campaign content, called on all campaigners to act "responsibly". Fact-checking body Full Fact criticised this behaviour as "inappropriate and misleading", and Twitter stated that it would take "decisive corrective action" if there were "further attempts to mislead people". First Draft News released an analysis of Facebook ads posted by political parties between 1 and 4 December. The analysis reported that 88% of the 6,749 posts the Conservatives made had been "challenged" by fact checker Full Fact. 5,000 of these ads related to a "40 new hospitals" claim, of which Full Fact concluded only six had been costed, with the others only receiving money for planning, with building uncosted and due to occur after 2025. 4,000 featured inaccurate claims about the cost of Labour's spending plans to the tax payer. 500 related to a "50,000 more nurses" pledge, consisting of 31,500 new nurses, and convincing 18,500 nurses already in post to remain. 16.5% of Liberal Democrats posts were highlighted, which related to claims they are the only party to beat Labour, the Conservatives, or the SNP "in seats like yours". None of the posts made by Labour in the period were challenged, although posts made on 10 December stating that a "Labour government would save households thousands in bills" and the Conservative Party had "cut £8bn from social care" since 2010 were flagged as misleading. According to the BBC, Labour supporters had been more likely to share unpaid-for electioneering posts, some of which included misleading claims. Television debates ITV aired a head-to-head election debate between Johnson and Corbyn on 19 November, hosted by Julie Etchingham. ITV Cymru Wales aired a debate featuring representatives from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Brexit Party on 17 November, hosted by Adrian Masters. Johnson cancelled his ITV interview with Etchingham, scheduled for 6 December, whilst the other major party leaders agreed to be interviewed. On the BBC, broadcaster Andrew Neil was due to separately interview party leaders in The Andrew Neil Interviews, and BBC Northern Ireland journalist Mark Carruthers to separately interview the five main Northern Irish political leaders. The leaders of the SNP, Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats, and the Brexit Party were all interviewed by Neil and the leader of the Conservative Party was not, leading Neil to release a challenge to Johnson to be interviewed. The Conservatives dismissed Neil's challenge. BBC Scotland, BBC Cymru Wales, and BBC Northern Ireland also hosted a variety of regional debates. Channel 4 cancelled a debate scheduled for 24 November after Johnson would not agree to a head-to-head with Corbyn. A few days later, the network hosted a leaders' debate focused on the climate. Johnson and Farage did not attend and were replaced on stage by ice sculptures with their party names written on them. The Conservatives alleged this was part of a pattern of bias at the channel, complained to Ofcom that Channel 4 had breached due impartiality rules as a result of their refusal to allow Michael Gove to appear as a substitute, and suggested that they might review the channel's broadcasting licence. In response, the Conservatives, as well as the Brexit Party, did not send a representative to Channel 4's "Everything but Brexit" on 8 December, and Conservative ministers were briefed not to appear on Channel 4 News. Ofcom rejected the Conservatives' complaint on 3 December. Sky News was due to hold a three-way election debate on 28 November, inviting Johnson, Corbyn, and Swinson. Swinson confirmed she would attend the debate, which was later cancelled after agreements could not be made with Corbyn or Johnson. Campaign events Before candidate nominations closed, several planned candidates for Labour and for the Conservatives withdrew, principally because of past social media activity. At least three Labour candidates and one Conservative candidate stood down, with two of the Labour candidates doing so following allegedly antisemitic remarks. Two other Conservative candidates were suspended from the Conservative Party over antisemitic social media posts, but retained their candidacy for the party. The Liberal Democrats removed one of its candidates over antisemitic social media posts, and defended two others. Several former Labour MPs critical of Corbyn endorsed the Conservatives. Meanwhile, several former Conservative MPs, including former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine, endorsed the Liberal Democrats and independent candidates. A week before election day, former Conservative prime minister John Major warned the public against enabling a majority Conservative government, to avoid what he saw as the damage a Johnson-led government could do to the country through Brexit. Major encouraged voters to vote tactically and to back former Conservative candidates instead of those put forward by the Conservative Party. The 2019–20 United Kingdom floods started hitting parts of England from 7 to 18 November. Johnson was criticised for what some saw as his late response to the flooding, after he said they were not a national emergency. The Conservatives banned Daily Mirror reporters from Johnson's campaign bus. On 27 November, Labour announced it had obtained leaked government documents; they said these showed that the Conservatives were in trade negotiations with the US over the NHS. The Conservatives said Labour was peddling "conspiracy theories", with Dominic Raab later suggesting this was evidence of Russian interference in the election. The election also saw the 2019 London Bridge stabbing, a terrorist stabbing attack that occurred in London on 29 November; owing to this, the political parties suspended campaigning in London for a time. The 2019 London summit of NATO was held in Watford on 3–4 December 2019. It was attended by 29 heads of state and heads of government, including then United States president Donald Trump. On 6 December, Labour announced it had obtained leaked government documents that they said showed that Johnson had misled the public about the Conservatives' Brexit deal with the EU, specifically regarding customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which are part of the Good Friday Agreement and that Johnson had said would not exist. Third-party campaigns In February 2021, an investigation by openDemocracy found that third-party campaign groups "pushed anti-Labour attack ads to millions of voters ahead of the 2019 general election spent more than £700,000 without declaring any individual donation". These included Capitalist Worker and Campaign Against Corbynism, both of which were set up less than three months before the election and quickly disappeared thereafter. A further investigation, also reported by the Daily Mirror, found that a group run by Conservative activist Jennifer Powers had spent around £65,000 on dozens of advertisements attacking Corbyn and Labour on housing policy without declaring any donations. During the campaign, i had reported that Powers was "a corporate lobbyist who is a former employee of the Conservative Party" and that her group had been one of "16 registrations completed since 5 November". Meanwhile, openDemocracy reported on the new phenomenon of United States-style, Super PAC-esque groups in British elections. Adam Ramsay, who wrote the article, contacted Powers and got her to admit to being an associate at the trade consultancy firm Competere, which was set up by lobbyist Shanker Singham, who works for the neoliberal think tank, the Institute for Economic Affairs. Powers' group "Right to Rent, Right to Buy, Right to Own" made claims that Labour wanted to "attack property rights in the UK" and "your mortgage will be harder to pay under Labour". Additionally, openDemocracy reported that, during the election campaign, the pro-Labour group Momentum spent more than £500,000, the European Movement for the United Kingdom spent almost £300,000 and the anti-Brexit groups Led By Donkeys and Best for Britain spent £458,237 and more than one million pounds respectively. Following these reports, former Liberal Democrats MP Tom Brake, who lost his seat in the election and was now director of the pressure group Unlock Democracy, wrote to the Electoral Commission, urging them to investigate. These calls were echoed by John McDonnell, Labour MP and former Shadow Chancellor, who insisted that "a serious and in-depth inquiry into third-party campaigning" was needed. Religious groups' opinions on the parties Ethnic minority and religious leaders and organisations made statements about the general election. Leaders of the Church of England stated people had a "democratic duty to vote", that they should "leave their echo chambers", and "issues need to be debated respectfully, and without resorting to personal abuse". Antisemitism in the Labour Party was persistently covered in the media in the lead up to the election. In his leader's interview with Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Neil dedicated the first third of the 30-minute programme entirely to discussion of Labour's relationship with the Jewish community. This interview drew attention as Corbyn refused to apologise for antisemitism in the Labour Party, despite having done so on previous occasions. The British chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis made an unprecedented intervention in politics, warning that antisemitism was a "poison sanctioned from the top" of the Labour Party, and saying that British Jews were gripped by anxiety about the prospect of a Corbyn-led government. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Hindu Council UK supported Mirvis's intervention, if not entirely endorsing it. The Jewish Labour Movement said they would not be actively campaigning for Labour except for exceptional candidates. The pro-Corbyn Morning Star reported that Jewish Voice for Labour and the Jewish Socialist Group said that Mirvis did not represent all Jews, with some people within the religious groups being keen to express that no one person or organisation represents the views of all the members of the faith. The Catholic Church in the United Kingdom urged voters to respect the right to life, opposing abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, along with a peaceful solution to Brexit, support the poor, care for the homeless, and attention to human rights. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) spokesman stated that Islamophobia "is particularly acute in the Conservative Party" and that Conservatives treat it "with denial, dismissal and deceit". In addition they released a 72-page document, outlining what they assess are the key issues from a British Muslim perspective. The MCB specifically criticised those who "seek to stigmatise and undermine Muslims"; for example, by implying that Pakistanis ("often used as a proxy for Muslims") vote "en bloc as directed by Imams". The Sunday Mirror stated that many of the candidates campaigning for the Brexit Party were Islamophobic. The Times of India reported that supporters of Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were actively campaigning for the Conservatives in 48 marginal seats, and the Today programme reported that it had seen WhatsApp messages sent to Hindus across the country urging them to vote Conservative. Some British Indians spoke out against what they saw as the BJP's meddling in the election. The Hindu Council UK was strongly critical of Labour, going as far as to say that Labour is "anti-Hindu", and objected to the party's condemnation of the Indian government's actions resulting in the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Labour's perceived introduction of a parachute candidate into Leicester East disappointed many with Indian heritage; specifically, no candidates of Indian descent were interviewed. The party selected or re-selected one candidate of Indian descent among its 39 safest seats. Endorsements Newspapers, organisations, and individuals had endorsed parties or individual candidates for the election. Media coverage Party representation According to Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC), media coverage of the first week of the campaign was dominated by the Conservatives and Labour, with the leaders of both parties being the most represented campaigners (Johnson with 20.8%; Corbyn with 18.8%). Due to this, the election coverage was characterised as increasingly 'presidential' as smaller parties have been marginalised. In television coverage, Boris Johnson had a particularly high-profile (30.4% against Corbyn's 22.6%). Labour (32%) and the Conservative Party (33%) received about a third of TV coverage each. In newspapers, Labour received two-fifths (40%) of the coverage and the Conservatives 35%. Spokespeople from both parties were quoted near equally, with Conservative sources being the most prominent in both press and TV coverage in terms of frequency of appearance. Sajid Javid and John McDonnell featured prominently during the first week because the economy of the United Kingdom was a top story for the media. McDonnell had more coverage than Javid on both TV and in print. A large proportion of the newspaper coverage of Labour was negative. Writing in the British Journalism Review, James Hanning said that, when reporting and commenting on Johnson, Conservative supporting newspapers made little mention of "a track record that would have sunk any other politician". In the Loughborough analysis, during the first week of the campaign, for example, the Conservatives had a positive press coverage score of +29.7, making them the only party to receive a positive overall presentation in the press. Meanwhile, Labour, meanwhile had a negative score of -70, followed by the Brexit Party on -19.7 and the Liberal Democrats on -10. Over the whole campaign, press hostility towards Labour had doubled compared with during the 2017 election, and negative coverage of the Conservatives halved. The Liberal Democrats were the party with the most TV coverage in the first week after Labour and the Conservatives, with an eighth of all reporting (13%). In newspapers, they received less coverage than the Brexit Party, whose leader Nigel Farage received nearly as much coverage (12.3%) as Johnson and Corbyn (17.4% each). Most of this coverage regarded the Brexit Party's proposed electoral pact with the Conservatives. The Brexit Party (7%) and the SNP (5%) were fourth and fifth in terms of TV coverage, respectively. Dominant issues As during the 2017 election and in line for British elections, the electoral process was the most covered media topic for this election at 31% of all coverage. Brexit was the most prominent policy issue on both TV (18%) and in the press (11%), followed by the economy, and health (8% and 7% of all coverage, respectively). There was little focused analysis of what the implementation of Brexit policies might mean, which contrasted with the more detailed analysis often undertaken of other manifesto commitments, such as those on the economy. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom received some prominence on TV but little coverage in the press. "Standards/scandals" and "Minorities/religion" received relatively significant discussion in large part relating to allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party and in the prior case an incident when Johnson was accused of reacting unsympathetically to an image of an ill child without a bed in hospital. Coverage of immigration and border controls fell overall from to 2017, while focus on environmental issues slightly increased. Gender balance Of the 20 most prominent spokespeople in media coverage of the first week of the election period, five were women, with Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and first minister of Scotland, in seventh place, the most featured. Women including citizens, experts, pollsters, businesspeople, trade union representatives, and the like featured in 23.9% of coverage and men in 76.1%. Men spoke three times as much as women in TV coverage, and five times as much in newspaper coverage. Members of Parliament not standing for re-election 74 members of Parliament (MPs) who held seats at the end of Parliament did not stand for re-election. Of these, 32 were Conservative MPs, 20 were Labour, 3 were Liberal Democrats, and 16 were independents. The number of MPs retiring was higher than the 2017 general election, when 31 stood down. Opinion polling The chart below depicts the results of opinion polls, mostly only of voters in Great Britain, conducted from the 2017 general election until the election. The line plotted is the average of the last 15 polls and the larger circles at the end represent the actual results of the election. The graph shows that the Conservatives and Labour polled to similar levels from mid-2017 to mid-2019. Following Johnson's election in July, the Conservatives established a clear lead over Labour, and simultaneously support for the Brexit Party declined from its peak in summer 2019. The Spreadex columns below cover bets on the number of seats each party would win, with the midpoint between asking and selling price. Predictions three weeks before the vote The first-past-the-post system used in the United Kingdom general elections means that the number of seats won is not directly related to vote share. Thus, several approaches are used to convert polling data and other information into seat predictions. The table below lists some of the predictions. Predictions two weeks before the vote Note: Elections Etc. does not add up to 650 seats due to rounding, the speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour", and majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats. Predictions one week before the vote Below are listed predictions based upon polls. Note: Elections Etc. does not add up to 650 seats due to rounding, the speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour", and majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats. Below are listed predictions based upon betting odds, assuming the favourite wins in each constituency. Note: The speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour", and majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats. Final predictions Exit poll An exit poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for the BBC, ITV, and Sky News was published at the end of voting at 10 pm, predicting the number of seats for each party. Results The Conservative Party won, securing 365 seats out of 650, giving them an overall majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons. They gained seats in several Labour Party strongholds in Northern England that had been held by the party for decades and which had formed the red wall; for instance, the constituency of Bishop Auckland, which elected a Conservative MP for the first time in its 134-year history. This marked a fourth consecutive general election defeat for the Labour Party. In the worst result for the party in 84 years, despite a better vote share than other losses as in 1931, 1983, 1987, and 2010, Labour won 202 seats, which was the lowest number since 1935 and a loss of 60 compared to the previous election. The Liberal Democrats won 11 seats, down 1, despite significantly increasing their share of the popular vote. Ed Davey, former Cameron–Clegg coalition cabinet minister and MP for Kingston and Surbiton, was the winner of the 2020 Liberal Democrats leadership election. This came after Jo Swinson lost her seat to Amy Callaghan of the SNP by 150 votes and was disqualified from continuing as leader of the party. Swinson also became the first party leader to lose their seat since Liberal Party leader Archibald Sinclair in 1945. While the Conservatives gained support in England and Wales, they lost support in Scotland in the face of a major SNP advance. The Conservatives won in England, advancing by 1.7% and gaining 48 seats to win 345 out of 533, while Labour fell back by 8% and lost 47 seats to win just 180. Labour won in Wales but lost 8% of its 2017 vote share and six seats, retaining 22 out of 40, while the Conservatives advanced by 2.5% and gained six seats, winning 14 in total. The SNP advanced by 8.1% and gained 13 seats to win 48 out of 59, gaining several seats from the Conservatives and Labour. The Conservatives lost 3.5% of their 2017 vote share and half their seats, while Labour was reduced to one Scottish seat, Edinburgh South. This is the same Scottish seat that returned Ian Murray in the 2015–17 Parliament as the country's sole Labour MP. Among the Labour MPs who lost their seats in Scotland was Lesley Laird, deputy leader of Scottish Labour and Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. In Northern Ireland, nationalist political parties won more seats than unionist ones for the first time. Nigel Dodds, the DUP's leader in Westminster, lost his seat in Belfast North. Analysis The results have been attributed to Leave-supporting areas backing the Conservatives, the Conservatives broadening their appeal to working-class voters, and the Conservatives making gains in the Midlands and the north of England. Most notable was the red wall turning blue in the election, which greatly contributed to the Conservative majority. In exit polls conducted by Opinium, 43% of voters who did not vote for the Labour Party cited 'the leadership' as their reason. Among those who did not vote for the Conservative Party, the cited reason was equally split between 'their stance on Brexit' and 'the leadership', with both at 26%. Several commentators stated that the party's loss was due to a complicated manifesto and Brexit policy, a poor approach to campaigning, and the unpopularity of Corbyn's leadership. A YouGov post-election survey determined that the age over which voters were more likely to opt for the Conservatives than for Labour was 39, down from 47 in the 2017 election. In contrast to previous elections, the YouGov survey additionally found that a plurality of voters in the DE's NRS social grade — comprising the unemployed, state pensioners, and semi-skilled and unskilled workers — had opted for the Conservatives over Labour. This change reflects the collapse of the 'Red Wall' which has a plurality of people in the DE classification according to the ONS. Between 26% and 33% of voters engaged in tactical voting, as they said that they were trying to prevent a victory by the party they liked least. Recommendation by tactical voting websites had some benefit for Liberal Democrat candidates. The new Parliament reportedly had the highest number of openly LGBT MPs in the world, with 20 Conservative MPs, 15 Labour MPs, and 10 SNP MPs who identify as LGBT. For the first time in both cases, the majority of elected Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs were female. The election also returned a record number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) MPs, with 65 MPs (10%) describing themselves as BAME. In a post-election review featuring Labour MPs, trade union officials and activists one of several reasons attributed to the electoral defeat was due to the declining popularity of Jeremy Corbyn in relation to the Brexit position and allegations of party antisemitism. The review projected that Labour would have retained 38% of the vote had Corbyn’s popularity levels retained at its peak level in 2017. Summary A summarised results of the parties that won seats at the election is shown below. Full results In total, the Green Party of England and Wales, Scottish Greens, and Green Party Northern Ireland received 865,715 votes (2.70%). This may be unclear from the table and sources which cite the total of the Greens in the whole of the United Kingdom rather than by region. Voter demographics Ipsos MORI Below is listed Ipsos MORI's demographic breakdown. YouGov Below is listed YouGov's demographic breakdown. Seats changing hands Seats which changed allegiance Reaction and aftermath In his victory speech, Johnson described the result as a mandate for leaving the EU and promised to do so by 31 January. The United Kingdom left the EU on 31 January 2020 but continued using EU trading rules until 23:00 on December 31. The election led to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats having leadership contests: the former as Corbyn resigned, the latter as Swinson failed to be elected as an MP. Corbyn portrayed the 2019 election results primarily as a consequence of attitudes surrounding Brexit rather than a rejection of Labour's social and economic policies. In an interview held on 13 December 2019, Corbyn said the election was "taken over ultimately by Brexit", and said that he was "proud of the [Labour] manifesto". The Labour leadership campaign was marked by conflicting analyses of what had gone wrong for the party in the general election. There was debate as to whether Corbyn's unpopularity or their position on Brexit was more significant. The 2020 Labour Together report, published by internal Labour party figures after Keir Starmer was elected as leader, highlighted issues like Corbyn's unpopularity, the party's Brexit policy, and poor seat targeting, as well as long-term changes in Labour's electoral coalition. In openDemocracy, Jo Michell and Rob Calvert Jump argued that the report underplayed the fact the geographical redistributions, stating that "Labour's decline in the North, Midlands and Wales is not the result of a dramatic collapse in its vote share, but changes in the distribution of votes between parties and constituencies." Successful Liberal Democrats MPs were critical in private of how the party had decided to advocate revoking the exercise of Article 50, and the communication of that policy. Some criticised the election campaign for being hubristic, with its initial defining message that Swinson could be the country's next prime minister. Ed Davey, the party's co-acting leader after the election, argued that the unpopularity of Corbyn lost the Liberal Democrats votes to the Conservatives. Wera Hobhouse, who was re-elected by a majority of 12,322, argued that the party had been wrong to pursue a policy of equidistance between Labour and the Conservatives in the general election campaign. Instead, she argued that the party should have concentrated more on campaigning against the Conservatives. The SNP's leader Nicola Sturgeon described the result as a clear mandate to hold a new referendum for Scottish independence. The British government said that it would not agree to a referendum being held and the Scottish government announced a few months later that it would put the issue on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. See also 2010s in United Kingdom political history 2019 in politics and government 2019 United Kingdom general election in England 2019 United Kingdom general election in Scotland 2019 United Kingdom general election in Wales 2019 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland Elections in the United Kingdom List of general elections in the United Kingdom Notes References Further reading Bale, Time; Ford, Robert; Jennings, Will; Surridge, Paula (2022). The British General Election of 2019. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-74256-0. It includes 605 pages and many tables. Prosser, Christopher (February 2011). "The End of the EU Affair: The UK General Election of 2019". West European Politics. 44 (2). pp. 450–461. External links House of Commons Briefings: General Election 2019: Full Results and Analysis Two years on: What the hell happened in the 2019 general election? (Politico podcast) BBC article about the Labour Party history Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 official text Early Parliamentary General Election Bill 2019-20, Progress in Parliament Archived 31 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine Institute for Government: General Election 2019 Party manifestos Unleash Britain's Potential, Conservative Party Accessible Versions Costings Document It's Time For Real Change, Labour Party Costings Document Stop Brexit and Build a Brighter Future, Liberal Democrats Accessible Versions Costings Document Stronger for Scotland, Scottish National Party Accessible Versions If Not Now, When?, Green Party Accessible Versions Contract With The People, The Brexit Party Let's Get the UK Moving Again, Democratic Unionist Party Demand Better, Alliance Party of Northern Ireland Time For Unity, Sinn Féin Stop Boris, Stop Brexit, Social Democratic and Labour Party Wales, it's us, Plaid Cymru Let's Change Together, Ulster Unionist Party Yorkshire Deserves Better, Yorkshire Party Archived 13 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine Demand Climate Action!, Scottish Greens For Brexit and Beyond, UK Independence Party Archived 29 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine Put Trust In The People, Liberal Party A 2020 vision for change, The Independent Group for Change

Boris_Johnson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023. In his youth Johnson attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, and he was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1986. In 1989 he began writing for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of The Spectator. He became a member of the Shadow Cabinet of Michael Howard in 2001 before being dismissed over a claim that he had lied about an extramarital affair. After Howard resigned Johnson became a member of David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet. He was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and resigned from the House of Commons to focus his attention on the mayoralty. He was re-elected mayor in 2012, but did not run for re-election in 2016. At the 2015 general election he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Johnson was a prominent figure in the Brexit campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. After the referendum Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary. He resigned from the position in 2018 in protest at both the Chequers Agreement and May's approach to Brexit. Johnson succeeded May as prime minister. He re-opened Brexit negotiations with the European Union and in early September he prorogued Parliament; the Supreme Court later ruled the prorogation to have been unlawful. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement but failing to win parliamentary support, Johnson called a snap general election to be held in December 2019, in which he won a landslide victory. During Johnson's premiership, the government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing various emergency powers to mitigate its impact and approved a nationwide vaccination programme. He also responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorising foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine. In the Partygate scandal it was found that numerous parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by 83 individuals, including Johnson, who in April 2022 was issued with a fixed penalty notice. The publishing of the Sue Gray report in May 2022 and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership amongst Conservative MPs, which he won. In July 2022, revelations over his appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip of the party while knowing of allegations of sexual misconduct against him led to a mass resignation of members of his government and to Johnson announcing his resignation as prime minister. He was succeeded as prime minister by Liz Truss, his foreign secretary. He remained in the House of Commons as a backbencher until 9 June 2023, when he received the draft of the Commons Privileges Committee investigation into his conduct that unanimously found that he had lied to the Commons on numerous occasions. Johnson resigned his position as MP the same day. Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics. His supporters have praised him for being humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal reaching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters, viewing him as an electoral asset to the party. Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism, and bigotry. During his premiership his supporters praised him for "getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, which was amongst the fastest in the world, and being one of the first world leaders to offer humanitarian support to Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the country. His tenure also encompassed several controversies and scandals, and is viewed as the most scandalous premiership of modern times by historians and biographers alike. Early life and education Childhood Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Stanley Johnson, then studying economics at Columbia University, and Charlotte Fawcett, an artist, whose father Sir James Fawcett, was a prominent barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights from 1972 to 1981. Johnson is one of only two British prime ministers to have been an American citizen (see Honorary citizenship of the United States). Johnson's parents returned to the UK in September 1964 so Charlotte could study at the University of Oxford. She lived with her son in Summertown, Oxford, and in September 1965 she gave birth to a daughter, Rachel. In July 1965, the family moved to Crouch End in north London, and in February 1966 they relocated to Washington, DC, where Stanley worked with the World Bank. Stanley then took a job with a policy panel on population control, and moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut, in June. A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967. The family returned to the UK in 1969, and lived at West Nethercote Farm, Somerset, Stanley's family home in Exmoor. His father was regularly absent, leaving Johnson to be raised largely by his mother, assisted by au pairs. As a child, Johnson was quiet, studious, and deaf, resulting in several operations to insert grommets into his ears. He and his siblings were encouraged to engage in intellectual activities from a young age. Johnson's earliest recorded ambition was to be "world king". Having no other friends, the siblings became very close. In late 1969, the family moved to Maida Vale in west London, while Stanley began post-graduate research at the London School of Economics. In 1970, Charlotte and the children briefly returned to Nethercote, where Johnson attended Winsford Village School, before returning to London to settle in Primrose Hill, where they were educated at Primrose Hill Primary School. A fourth child, Joseph, was born in late 1971. After Stanley secured employment at the European Commission in April 1973, he moved his family to Uccle, Brussels, where Johnson attended the European School, Brussels I and learnt to speak French. Charlotte had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised with depression, after which Johnson and his siblings were sent back to the UK in 1975 to attend Ashdown House, a preparatory boarding school in East Sussex. There, he developed interests in rugby, Ancient Greek, and Latin. In December 1978 his parents' relationship broke down; they divorced in 1980, and Charlotte moved to Notting Hill, London, where her children joined her for much of their time. Eton and Oxford: 1977–1987 Johnson gained a King's Scholarship to study at Eton College, a boarding school near Windsor, Berkshire. Arriving in the autumn term of 1977, he began going by his middle name Boris, and developed "the eccentric English persona" for which he became famous. He denounced Catholicism and joined the Church of England. School reports complained about his idleness, complacency, and lateness, but he was popular at Eton. Johnson's friends were largely from the wealthy upper classes; his best friends were Darius Guppy and Charles Spencer. Both would go on to accompany him at the University of Oxford and remained his friends into adulthood. Johnson excelled in English and the Classics, winning prizes in both, and became secretary of the school debating society and editor of the school newspaper. In late 1981, he became a member of Pop, a small, self-selecting elite group of school prefects. After leaving Eton, Johnson went on a gap year to Australia, where he taught English and Latin at Timbertop, an Outward Bound-inspired campus of Geelong Grammar, an independent boarding school. Johnson won a scholarship to read Literae humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in Classics, ancient languages, literature, history, and philosophy. Matriculating in late 1983, he was one of a generation of Oxford undergraduates who dominated British politics and media in the early 21st century, including Cameron, William Hague, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Nick Boles. While at Oxford, Johnson joined the college's rugby union team as a tighthead prop. To his later regret, he joined the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive drinking society notorious for vandalism. Many years later, a group photograph including himself and Cameron in Bullingdon Club formal dress led to much negative press coverage. While at Oxford, he began a relationship with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, cover girl for Tatler magazine and daughter of Christie's Education chairman William Mostyn-Owen. They became engaged. Johnson was popular and well known at Oxford. Alongside Guppy, he edited the university's satirical magazine Tributary. In 1984, Johnson was elected secretary of the Oxford Union, and campaigned unsuccessfully for the position of Union President. In 1986, Johnson ran successfully for President, but his term was not distinguished or memorable, and questions were raised regarding his competence and seriousness. At graduation, Johnson was awarded an upper second-class degree, and was deeply unhappy he did not receive a first. Early career The Times and The Daily Telegraph: 1987–1994 In September 1987, Johnson and Mostyn-Owen married. They settled in West Kensington, London. In late 1987, through family connections, he began work as a graduate trainee at The Times. Scandal erupted when Johnson wrote an article for the newspaper on the archaeological discovery of Edward II's palace, having invented a quote which he falsely attributed to the historian Colin Lucas, his godfather. After the paper's editor, Charles Wilson, learnt of the matter, he dismissed Johnson. Johnson secured employment on the lead-writing desk of The Daily Telegraph, having met its editor, Max Hastings, while at university. His articles appealed to the newspaper's Conservative-voting "Middle England" readership, and he was known for his distinctive literary style, replete with old-fashioned phrasing and for regularly referring to the readership as "my friends". In early 1989, Johnson was appointed to the newspaper's Brussels bureau to report on the European Commission, remaining in the post until 1994. A strong critic of the integrationist Commission president Jacques Delors, he established himself as one of the city's few Eurosceptic journalists. He wrote articles about euromyths: that Brussels had recruited sniffer dogs to ensure that all manure smelt the same, they were about to dictate the acceptable curve of British bananas, limit the power of their vacuum cleaners and order women to return their old sex toys. He wrote that euro notes made people impotent and that a plan to blow up the Berlaymont building was in place because asbestos cladding made the building too dangerous to inhabit. Many of his fellow journalists were critical of his articles, saying they often contained lies designed to discredit the commission. The Europhile Conservative politician Chris Patten later said that Johnson was "one of the greatest exponents of fake journalism". Johnson opposed banning handguns after the Dunblane school massacre, writing in his column "Nanny is confiscating their toys. It is like one of those vast Indian programmes of compulsory vasectomy." According to one of his biographers, Sonia Purnell, – who was Johnson's Brussels deputy – he helped make Euroscepticism "an attractive and emotionally resonant cause for the Right", whereas it had been associated previously with the Left. Johnson's articles exacerbated tensions between the Conservative Party's Eurosceptic and Europhile factions. As a result, he earned the mistrust of many party members. His writings were also a key influence on the emergence of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the early 1990s. Conrad Black, then proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, said Johnson "was such an effective correspondent for us in Brussels that he greatly influenced British opinion on this country's relations with Europe". In February 1990, Johnson's wife Allegra broke up with him; after several attempts at reconciliation, their marriage ended in April 1993. He began a relationship with childhood friend Marina Wheeler, who had moved to Brussels in 1990. They were married in May 1993. Soon after, Marina gave birth to a daughter. Johnson and his new wife settled in Islington, north London, an area known for its association with the left-liberal intelligentsia. Under the influence of this milieu and of his wife, Johnson moved in a more liberal direction on issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and race relations. While in Islington, the couple had three more children, all given the surname Johnson-Wheeler. They were sent to the local Canonbury Primary School and then to private secondary schools. Devoting much time to his children, Johnson wrote a book of verse, The Perils of the Pushy Parents: A Cautionary Tale, which was published to largely poor reviews. Political columnist: 1994–1999 Back in London, Hastings turned down Johnson's request to become a war reporter, instead promoting him to assistant editor and chief political columnist. Johnson's column received praise for being ideologically eclectic and distinctively written, and earned him Commentator of the Year Award at the What the Papers Say awards. Some critics condemned his writing style as bigotry; in columns he used the words "piccaninnies" and "watermelon smiles" when referring to Africans, championed European colonialism in Uganda and referred to gay men as "tank-topped bumboys". In 1993, Johnson outlined his desire to run as a Conservative in the 1994 European Parliament elections. Andrew Mitchell convinced Major not to veto Johnson's candidacy, but Johnson could not find a constituency. He turned his attention to obtaining a seat in the House of Commons instead. After being rejected as Conservative candidate for Holborn and St. Pancras, he was selected the Conservative candidate for Clwyd South in north Wales, then a Labour Party safe seat. Spending six weeks campaigning, he attained 9,091 votes (23 per cent) in the 1997 general election, losing to Labour candidate Martyn Jones. Scandal erupted in June 1995 when a recording of a 1990 telephone conversation between Johnson and his friend Darius Guppy was made public. In it, Guppy said that his criminal activities involving insurance fraud were being investigated by News of the World journalist Stuart Collier, and he asked Johnson to provide him with Collier's private address, seeking to have the latter beaten. Johnson agreed, although he expressed concern that he would be associated with the attack. When the phone conversation was published, Johnson stated that ultimately he had not obliged Guppy's request. Hastings reprimanded Johnson but did not dismiss him. Johnson was given a regular column in The Spectator, sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, which attracted mixed reviews and was often thought rushed. In 1999, he was also given a column reviewing new cars in the American men's monthly magazine GQ. The large number of parking fines that Johnson acquired while testing cars frustrated staff. At The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, he was consistently late delivering copy, forcing staff to stay late to accommodate him; some related that if they published without his work, he would shout at them with expletives. Johnson's April 1998 appearance on the BBC's satirical current affairs show Have I Got News for You brought him national fame. He was invited back on to later episodes, including as a guest presenter; for his 2003 appearance, Johnson was nominated for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. After these appearances, he came to be recognised on the street, and was invited to appear on other shows, such as Top Gear, Parkinson, Breakfast with Frost, and Question Time. The Spectator and MP for Henley: 1999–2008 In July 1999, Conrad Black offered Johnson the editorship of The Spectator on the condition he abandon his parliamentary aspirations; Johnson agreed. While retaining The Spectator's traditional right-wing bent, Johnson welcomed contributions from leftist writers and cartoonists. Under Johnson's editorship, the magazine's circulation grew by 10% to 62,000 and it became profitable. His editorship also drew criticism; some opined that under him The Spectator avoided serious issues, while colleagues became annoyed that he was regularly absent from the office, meetings, and events. He gained a reputation as a poor political pundit because of incorrect political predictions. His father-in-law Charles Wheeler and others strongly criticised him for allowing Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopulos to publish racist and antisemitic language. Journalist Charlotte Edwardes wrote in The Times in 2019 that Johnson had squeezed her thigh at a private lunch at the Spectator in 1999 and that another woman had told her he had done the same to her. A spokesman denied the allegation. In 2004, Johnson published an editorial in The Spectator after the murder of Ken Bigley suggesting that Liverpudlians were wallowing in their victim status and "hooked on grief" over the Hillsborough disaster, which Johnson partly blamed on "drunken fans". In an appendix added to a later edition of his 2005 book The Dream of Rome, Tell MAMA and the Muslim Council of Britain criticised Johnson for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be "literally centuries behind" the West. Becoming an MP Following Michael Heseltine's retirement, Johnson decided to stand as Conservative candidate for Henley, a Conservative safe seat in Oxfordshire. The local Conservative branch selected him although it was split over Johnson's candidacy. Some thought him amusing and charming while others disliked his flippant attitude and perceived lack of knowledge of the local area. Assisted by his television fame, Johnson won the seat in the 2001 general election. Alongside his Islington home, Johnson bought a farmhouse outside Thame in his new constituency. He regularly attended Henley social events and occasionally wrote for the Henley Standard. His constituency surgeries proved popular, and he joined local campaigns to stop the closure of Townlands Hospital and the local air ambulance. In Parliament, Johnson was appointed to a standing committee assessing the Proceeds of Crime Bill, but missed many of its meetings. Despite his credentials as a public speaker, his speeches in the House of Commons were widely deemed lacklustre. He attended around half of Commons votes, usually supporting the Conservative party line. In free votes, he demonstrated a more socially liberal attitude, supporting the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the repeal of Section 28. However, in 2001, Johnson had spoken out against plans to repeal Section 28, saying it was "Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools". After initially stating he would not, he supported the government's plans to join the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in April 2003 visited occupied Baghdad. In August 2004, he backed unsuccessful impeachment procedures against Prime Minister Tony Blair for "high crimes and misdemeanours" regarding the war, and in December 2006 described the invasion as "a colossal mistake and misadventure". Although labelling Johnson "ineffably duplicitous" for breaking his promise not to become an MP, Black decided not to dismiss him because he "helped promote the magazine and raise its circulation". Johnson remained editor of The Spectator, while also writing columns for The Daily Telegraph and GQ, and making television appearances. His 2001 book, Friends, Voters, Countrymen: Jottings on the Stump, recounted that year's election campaign, while 2003's Lend Me Your Ears collected previously published columns and articles. In 2004, HarperCollins published his first novel: Seventy-Two Virgins: A Comedy of Errors revolved around the life of a Conservative MP and contained autobiographical elements. Responding to criticism that he was juggling too many jobs, he cited Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli as exemplars who combined political and literary careers. To manage stress, he took up jogging and cycling, and became so well known for the latter that Gimson suggested he was "perhaps the most famous cyclist in Britain". Following William Hague's resignation as Conservative leader, the party elected Iain Duncan Smith. Johnson had a strained relationship with Duncan Smith, and The Spectator became critical of his party leadership. Duncan Smith was succeeded by Michael Howard in November 2003; Howard deemed Johnson to be the most popular Conservative politician with the electorate and appointed him vice-chairman of the party, responsible for overseeing its electoral campaign. In his Shadow Cabinet reshuffle of May 2004, Howard appointed Johnson as shadow arts minister. In October, Howard ordered Johnson to apologise publicly in Liverpool for publishing a Spectator article – anonymously written by Simon Heffer – which said the crowds at the Hillsborough disaster had contributed to the incident and that Liverpudlians had a predilection for reliance on the welfare state. In November 2004, the tabloids revealed that since 2000 Johnson had been having an affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt, resulting in two abortions. Johnson denied the allegations but they were subsequently proven to be true, and Howard dismissed him as vice-chairman and shadow arts minister when he refused to resign. Second term At the 2005 general election, Johnson was re-elected MP for Henley. Labour won the election and Howard stood down as Conservative leader; Johnson backed David Cameron as his successor. After Cameron was elected, he appointed Johnson as the shadow higher education minister. Interested in streamlining university funding, Johnson supported Labour's proposed top-up fees. He campaigned in 2006 to become the Rector of the University of Edinburgh, but his support for top-up fees damaged his campaign, and he came third. In April 2006, the News of the World alleged that Johnson was having an affair with journalist Anna Fazackerley; the pair did not comment, and shortly afterwards Johnson began employing Fazackerley. In September 2006, Papua New Guinea's High Commission protested after he compared the Conservatives' frequently changing leadership to cannibalism in the country. In 2005, The Spectator's new chief executive, Andrew Neil, dismissed Johnson as editor. To make up for this loss of income, Johnson negotiated with The Daily Telegraph to raise his salary from £200,000 to £250,000, averaging £5,000 per column. He presented a popular history television show, The Dream of Rome, which was broadcast in January 2006; a book followed in February. A sequel, After Rome, focused on early Islamic history. In 2007, he earned £540,000, making him the third-highest-earning MP that year. Mayor of London (2008–2016) Mayoral election: 2007–2008 In September, Johnson was selected as the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London after a public London-wide primary. Johnson's campaign focused on reducing youth crime, making public transport safer, and replacing the articulated buses with an updated version of the AEC Routemaster. Targeting the Conservative-leaning suburbs of outer London, it capitalised on perceptions that the Labour Mayoralty had neglected them in favour of inner London. His campaign emphasised his popularity, even among those who opposed his policies, with opponents complaining a common attitude among voters was: "I'm voting for Boris because he is a laugh." The campaign of Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone portrayed Johnson as an out-of-touch toff and bigot. In the election, Johnson received 43% and Livingstone 37% of first-preference votes; when second-preference votes were added, Johnson was victorious with 53% to Livingstone's 47%. Johnson subsequently announced his intention to stand down as MP for Henley. First term: 2008–2012 After Johnson became mayor, those in City Hall deemed too closely allied to Livingstone's administration had their employment terminated. Johnson appointed Tim Parker as his deputy mayor, but after Parker began taking increasing control at City Hall, Johnson dismissed him. Many in the Conservative Party initially distanced themselves from Johnson's administration, fearing it would be damaging for the 2010 general election. During the campaign, Johnson had confided to Brian Paddick he was unsure how he would maintain his lifestyle on the mayoral salary of £140,000 a year. He agreed to continue his Daily Telegraph column, thus earning a further £250,000 a year. His team believed this would cause controversy and made him promise to donate 20% of his Daily Telegraph salary to a charitable cause. Johnson resented this, and ultimately did not pay the full 20%. Controversy erupted when on the BBC's HARDtalk he referred to the £250,000 salary as "chicken feed"; this was at the time approximately 10 times the average yearly wage for a British worker. During his first administration, Johnson was embroiled in several personal scandals. After moving to a new house in Islington, he built a shed without obtaining planning permission; after neighbours complained, he dismantled it. The press also accused him of having an affair with Helen Macintyre and of fathering her child, allegations that he did not deny. Johnson was accused of warning Damian Green that police were planning to arrest him; Johnson denied the claims. He was accused of cronyism, in particular for appointing Veronica Wadley as the chair of London's Arts Council. In the parliamentary expenses scandal, he was accused of excessive expenses claims for taxis. Johnson remained a popular figure in London with a strong celebrity status in the city. Policies Johnson made no major changes to the mayoral system of the previous administration. However, he did reverse several other measures implemented by Livingstone: ending the city's oil deal with Venezuela, abolishing The Londoner newsletter, and scrapping the half-yearly inspections of black cabs, which was reinstated three years later. Abolishing the western wing of the congestion charging zone, he cancelled plans to increase the congestion charge for four-wheel-drive vehicles. He was subsequently accused of failing to publish an independent report on air pollution commissioned by the Greater London Authority, which revealed the city breached legal limits on nitrogen dioxide levels. Johnson retained Livingstone projects such as Crossrail and the 2012 Olympic Games, but was accused of trying to take credit for them. He introduced a public bicycle scheme that had been mooted by Livingstone's administration; colloquially known as "Boris Bikes", the part privately financed system was a significant financial loss but proved popular. Despite Johnson's support of cycling, and his much-publicised identity as a cyclist, some cycling groups argued he had failed to make the city's roads safer for cyclists. As per his election pledge, he commissioned the development of the New Routemaster buses for central London. He also ordered the construction of a cable car system that crossed the River Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks. Johnson's first policy initiative was a ban on drinking alcohol on public transport. He announced plans to extend pay-as-you-go Oyster cards to national rail services in London. A pledge in Johnson's manifesto was to retain Tube ticket offices, in opposition to Livingstone's proposal to close up to 40. On 2 July 2008, the Mayor's office announced the closure plan was to be abandoned. On 21 November 2013, Transport for London announced that all London Underground ticket offices would close by 2015. In financing these projects, Johnson's administration borrowed £100 million, while public transport fares were increased by 50%. During his first term, Johnson was perceived as having moved leftward on certain issues, supporting the London Living Wage and endorsing an amnesty for illegal migrants. He tried placating critics who had deemed him a bigot by appearing at London's gay pride parade and praising ethnic minority newspapers. Johnson broke from the traditional protocol of those in public office not publicly commenting on other nations' elections by endorsing Barack Obama for the 2008 United States presidential election. Relations with the police, finance, and the media Johnson appointed himself chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), and in October 2008 successfully pushed for the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair, after Blair was criticised for allegedly handing contracts to friends and for his handling of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. This earned Johnson respect among Conservatives, who interpreted it as his first act of strength. Johnson resigned as chairman of the MPA in January 2010, but throughout his mayoralty was highly supportive of the Metropolitan Police, particularly during the controversy surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson. Overall crime in London fell during his administration, but his claim that serious youth crime had decreased proved to be false, and he acknowledged the error. He was criticised for his response to the 2011 London riots. Johnson championed London's financial sector and denounced what he saw as "banker bashing" following the financial crisis of 2007–08, condemning the anti-capitalist Occupy London movement that appeared in 2011. He collected donations from the city's wealthy for a charitable enterprise, the Mayor's Fund, which he had established to aid disadvantaged youths. It initially announced the fund would raise £100 million, but by 2010 it had only earnt £1.5 million. He also maintained extensive personal contacts throughout the British media, which resulted in widespread favourable press coverage of his administration. In turn he remained largely supportive of his friends in the media, including Rupert Murdoch, during the News International phone hacking scandal. The formation of the Forensic Audit Panel was announced on 8 May 2008. The panel was tasked with monitoring and investigating financial management at the London Development Agency and the Greater London Authority. Johnson's announcement was criticised by Labour for the perceived politicisation of this nominally independent panel. The head of the panel, Patience Wheatcroft, was married to a Conservative councillor and three of the four remaining panel members also had close links to the Conservatives. Re-election campaign Up for re-election in 2012, Johnson again hired Crosby to orchestrate his campaign. Before the election, Johnson published Johnson's Life of London, a work of popular history that historian A. N. Wilson characterised as a "coded plea" for votes. Polls suggested that while Livingstone's approach to transport was preferred, voters in London placed greater trust in Johnson on crime and the economy. Johnson's campaign emphasised the accusation that Livingstone was guilty of tax evasion, for which Livingstone called Johnson a "bare-faced liar". Political scientist Andrew Crines believed that Livingstone's campaign focused on criticising Johnson rather than presenting an alternate and progressive vision of London's future. Johnson was re-elected. Second term: 2012–2016 After a successful bid under Livingstone in 2005, London hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics, with Johnson as board co-chair. He improved transportation around London by making more tickets available and adding buses around the capital when thousands of spectators were temporary visitors. Johnson was accused of covering up pollution ahead of the games by deploying dust suppressants to remove air particulates near monitoring stations. In November 2013, Johnson announced major changes to the operation of the London Underground, including the extension of operating hours. All staffed ticket offices were replaced with automated ticketing systems. Johnson was close friends with American entrepreneur and model Jennifer Arcuri, with The Sunday Times describing him as a regular visitor to her flat, and implying they were in a sexual relationship. Arcuri and her company, Innotech, were awarded substantial government grants, and Johnson intervened to allow her onto three trade mission trips. The Sunday Times said in September 2019 that Johnson failed to declare his personal relationship as a conflict of interest. The Greater London Authority referred the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) "so it can assess whether or not it is necessary to investigate the former mayor of London for the criminal offence of misconduct in public office", for the Mayor is also London's police and crime commissioner. On 9 November 2019 it was revealed that the IOPC had decided to publish its report after the general election on 12 December. The IOPC eventually issued its report in May 2020, concluding that, although there was no basis for any criminal charge, there was evidence that the close relationship between Johnson and Arcuri had influenced decisions, that Johnson should have declared an interest, and that his failure to do this could have breached the London Assembly's code of conduct. In 2015, Johnson criticised then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's false comments that there were no-go zones in London inaccessible for non-Muslims. Johnson said Trump was "betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States", becoming the first senior politician in the UK to declare Trump unfit for office, but rejecting calls for him to be banned from the country. In 2016, he said he was "genuinely worried that [Trump] could become president", telling ITV's Tom Bradby that being mistaken for Trump in New York was "one of the worst moments" of his life. Johnson did not run for a third mayoral and stepped down on 5 May 2016 following the election. A YouGov poll commissioned at the end of Johnson's term revealed that 52% of Londoners believed he did a "good job" while 29% believed he did a "bad job". Return to Parliament Johnson initially said that he would not return to the House of Commons while mayor. After much media speculation, in August 2014 he sought selection as the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip at the 2015 general election. In the 2015 general election, Johnson was elected. There was speculation that he had returned to Parliament because he wanted to replace Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister. Brexit campaign: 2015–2016 In February 2016, Johnson endorsed Vote Leave in the "Out" campaign for the 2016 European Union membership referendum. Following this announcement, which was interpreted by financial markets as making Brexit more probable, the pound sterling slumped by nearly 2% against the US dollar, reaching its lowest level since March 2009. In April 2016, in response to a comment by President Barack Obama that Britain should remain in the European Union, Johnson wrote an "ancestral dislike" of Britain owing to his "part-Kenyan" background may have shaped Obama's views. Several politicians condemned his comments as racist and unacceptable. Conversely, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith and UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage defended them. Johnson supported Vote Leave's statement that the government was committed to Turkish accession to the EU. Vote Leave was accused of implying that 80 million Turks would come to the UK if it stayed in the EU. When interviewed in January 2019, he said he had not mentioned Turkey during the campaign. On 22 June 2016, Johnson declared 23 June could be "Britain's independence day" in a televised debate. Following the victory of the "Leave" campaign, Cameron resigned. Johnson was widely regarded as the front-runner to succeed him. Johnson announced he would not stand in the Conservative leadership election. Shortly before this, Michael Gove, hitherto a Johnson ally, concluded that Johnson "cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead". The Daily Telegraph called Gove's comments "the most spectacular political assassination in a generation". Johnson endorsed Andrea Leadsom's candidature, but she dropped out, leaving Theresa May to be elected uncontested. Foreign Secretary: 2016–2018 May appointed Johnson foreign secretary in July 2016. Analysts saw the appointment as a tactic to weaken Johnson politically: the new positions of "Brexit secretary" and international trade secretary left the foreign secretary as a figurehead. Johnson's appointment ensured he would often be out of the country and unable to mobilise backbenchers against her, while forcing him to take responsibility for problems caused by withdrawing from the EU. Some journalists and foreign politicians criticised Johnson's appointment because of his controversial statements about other countries. His tenure attracted criticism from diplomats and foreign policy experts. A number of diplomats, FCO staff and foreign ministers who worked with Johnson compared his leadership unfavourably to previous foreign secretaries for his perceived lack of conviction or substantive positions on foreign policy issues. A senior official in Obama's government suggested Johnson's appointment would push the US further towards Germany at the expense of the Special Relationship with the UK. On one occasion Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi walked out of a meeting with Johnson after a meeting did not "get beyond the pleasantries". Johnson's visit to Turkey in September 2016 was somewhat tense because he had won Douglas Murray's offensive poetry competition about the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, four months earlier. When questioned by a journalist whether he would apologise for the poem, Johnson dismissed the matter as "trivia". Johnson pledged to help Turkey join the EU and expressed support for Erdogan's government. Johnson described the Gülen movement as a "cult" and supported Turkey's post-coup purges. Johnson supported the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen and refused to block UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. In September 2016, human rights groups accused him of blocking the UN inquiry into Saudi war crimes in Yemen. Given the UK-Saudi alliance, in December 2016, he attracted attention for commenting the Saudis were akin to the Iranians in "puppeteering and playing proxy wars". In November 2017, Johnson told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a British-Iranian citizen imprisoned in Iran after being arrested for training citizen journalists and bloggers in a BBC World Service Trust project – had been "simply teaching people journalism". Facing criticism, Johnson stated he had been misquoted and that nothing he said had justified Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sentence. In May 2018, Johnson backed the Iran nuclear deal framework, despite Donald Trump's withdrawal. In April 2017, Johnson said that Gibraltar's sovereignty was "not going to change" after Brexit. Johnson promised while in Northern Ireland that Brexit would leave the Irish border "absolutely unchanged". Johnson visited Anguilla and Tortola in September 2017 to confirm the UK's commitment to helping restore British territories devastated by Hurricane Irma. In September 2017, he was criticised for reciting lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay while visiting a Myanmar temple; the British ambassador, who was with him, suggested it was "not appropriate". In October 2017, he faced criticism for stating the Libyan city of Sirte could become an economic success like Dubai: "all they have to do is clear the dead bodies away". Initially favouring a less hostile approach to Russia, Johnson soon backed a more aggressive policy. Following the March 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, an act which the UK government blamed on Russia, Johnson compared Vladimir Putin's hosting of the World Cup in Russia to Adolf Hitler's hosting of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Russia's Foreign Ministry denounced Johnson's "unacceptable and unworthy" parallel towards Russia, a "nation that lost millions of lives in fighting Nazism". Johnson described the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany as "divisive" and a "threat" that left Europe dependent on a "malign Russia" for its energy supplies. Johnson condemned the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, comparing the situation with the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. Johnson supported the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting the Syrian Kurds from Afrin. He accused the UNHRC of focusing disproportionately on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. In a September 2017 op-ed, Johnson reiterated the UK would regain control of £350m a week after Brexit, suggesting it go to the National Health Service (NHS). Cabinet colleagues subsequently criticised him for reviving the assertion. Following the 2017 general election, Johnson denied media reports he intended to challenge May's leadership. In a February 2018 letter to May, Johnson suggested that Northern Ireland may have to accept border controls after Brexit and that it would not seriously affect trade, having initially said a hard border would be unthinkable. In June, he was reported as having said "fuck business" when asked about corporate concerns regarding a 'hard' Brexit. Secret recordings obtained by BuzzFeed News in June 2018 revealed Johnson's dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Theresa May's negotiating style, accusing her of being too collaborative with the European Union in Brexit negotiations. Comparing May's approach to that of the US president Donald Trump – who at the time was engaged in a combative trade war with the EU because it raised tariffs on metal – Johnson said: "Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He'd go in bloody hard ... There'd be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he'd gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere." He accused individuals of scaremongering over a Brexit "meltdown", saying "No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic. It's going to be all right in the end." In April 2018, Johnson travelled to Italy to attend a party at the Palazzo Terranova, owned by the former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and hosted by his son Evgeny. He travelled without security protection or other officials, and did not document the trip, which led to accusations of Johnson having misled parliament. In June 2023, it was revealed that Lord Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant of his department, was not aware of the trip. Johnson stated that "no government business was discussed" at the event as far as he was aware. Lebedev's villa was monitored by the Italian secret service at the time, who, according to a Channel 4 documentary, suspected it to be used for espionage activities. Johnson granted a peerage to Evgeny in 2020, against the advice of the MI6, and met with criticism over potential security concerns. In July 2018, three days after the cabinet had its meeting to agree on a Brexit strategy, Johnson, along with Brexit secretary David Davis, resigned his post. Return to the backbenches: 2018–2019 Johnson returned to the role of a backbench MP. In July, he delivered a resignation speech, stating "it is not too late to save Brexit". In January 2019, Johnson came under criticism for remarks he had made during the 2016 Leave campaign regarding the prospect of Turkish accession to the European Union; he denied making such remarks. In March 2019, he was criticized for saying that expenditure on investigating historic allegations of child abuse was money "spaffed up the wall". Journalism In July 2018, Johnson signed a 12‑month contract to write articles for the Telegraph Media Group. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) reported that this was a breach of the Ministerial Code. Johnson was ordered to apologise for failing to declare £50,000 of earnings. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found the errors were not inadvertent, and that Johnson had failed on nine occasions to make declarations within the rules. In September 2018, Johnson wrote: "We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier." Senior Tories heavily criticised him, with Alan Duncan of the Foreign Office vowing to ensure the comments marked "the political end of Boris Johnson". In April 2019, the Independent Press Standards Organisation ruled that a claim in a 6 January 2019 article in The Daily Telegraph, "The British people won't be scared into backing a woeful Brexit deal nobody voted for", authored by Johnson, that a no-deal Brexit was "by some margin preferred by the British public" was false, and "represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the article in breach of Clause 1 (i)" of its guidelines, and required that a correction be published. 2019 Conservative Party leadership election On 12 June 2019, Johnson launched his campaign for the Conservative Party leadership election, saying, "we must leave the EU on 31 October." On the campaign trail, Johnson warned of "catastrophic consequences for voter trust in politics" if the government pushed the EU for further delays. He advocated removing the backstop from any Brexit deal. On 25 and 26 August, he announced plans to retain £7 or £9 billion of the £39 billion divorce payment the UK is due to transfer to the EU upon withdrawal. Johnson initially pledged to cut income tax for earners of more than £50,000 but backed away from this plan in June 2019 after coming under criticism in a televised BBC debate. Johnson was elected leader with 92,153 votes (66%) to Hunt's 46,656 (34%). Premiership (2019–2022) First term (July–December 2019) On 24 July 2019, the day following Johnson's election as Conservative Party leader, Queen Elizabeth II accepted Theresa May's resignation and appointed Johnson as prime minister. This made Johnson the first prime minister to be born outside British territories. Johnson appointed Dominic Cummings as his senior advisor. Brexit policy In his first speech as PM, Johnson said that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on 31 October 2019 with or without a deal, and promised to remove the Irish backstop from the withdrawal agreement. Johnson declared his intention to re-open negotiations, but talks did not immediately resume as the EU refused to accept Johnson's condition that the backstop be removed. On 28 August 2019, UK and EU negotiators agreed to resume regular meetings. Also on 28 August 2019, Johnson declared he had asked the Queen to prorogue Parliament from 10 September, reducing the time in which Parliament could block a no-deal Brexit and causing a political controversy. The Queen at Privy Council approved prorogation later the same day, and it began on 10 September, scheduled to last until 14 October. Some suggested that this prorogation amounted to a self-coup, and on 31 August 2019, protests occurred throughout the United Kingdom. By 2 September 2019, three separate court cases challenging Johnson's action were in progress or scheduled to take place, and on 11 September, three Scottish judges ruled the prorogation of the UK Parliament to be unlawful. On 12 September, Johnson denied lying to the Queen over suspension of the Parliament, while a Belfast Court rejected claims that his Brexit plans would have a negative impact on Northern Ireland's peace policy. On 24 September, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Johnson's advice to prorogue Parliament was unlawful, and therefore the prorogation was rendered null. When Parliament resumed on 3 September 2019, Johnson indicated he would call a general election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act after opposition and rebel Conservative MPs successfully voted against the government to take control of the order of business to prevent a no-deal exit. Despite government opposition, the Benn Act, a bill to block a no-deal exit, passed the Commons on 4 September 2019, causing Johnson to propose a general election on 15 October. His motion was unsuccessful as it failed to command the support of two-thirds of the House. In October 2019, following bilateral talks between Johnson and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the UK and EU agreed to a revised deal, which replaced the backstop with a new Northern Ireland Protocol. First Cabinet Johnson appointed his Cabinet on 24 July 2019, dismissing 11 senior ministers and accepting the resignation of six others. The mass dismissal was the most extensive postwar Cabinet reorganisation without a change in the ruling party. Among other appointments, Johnson made Dominic Raab the First Secretary of State and foreign secretary and appointed Sajid Javid and Priti Patel as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, respectively. Loss of working majority On 3 September 2019, Phillip Lee crossed the floor to the Liberal Democrats following a disagreement with Johnson's Brexit policy. This left the government without a working majority in the House of Commons. Later that day, 21 Conservative MPs had the party whip withdrawn for defying party orders and supporting an opposition motion. (The whip was restored to 10 former Conservative ministers on 29 October.) On 5 September 2019, Johnson's brother Jo Johnson resigned from the government and announced that he would step down as MP, describing his position as "torn between family and national interest". Two days later, Amber Rudd resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and from the Conservative Party, describing the withdrawal of the party whip as an "assault on decency and democracy". 2019 general election In October 2019, Parliament was dissolved, and an election called for 12 December. The election resulted in the Conservative Party winning 43.6% of the vote and a parliamentary landslide majority of 80 seats. A key slogan used in the Conservative campaign was "Get Brexit Done". Second term (December 2019 – September 2022) Second Cabinet Johnson reshuffled his cabinet in February 2020. Five Cabinet ministers were sacked, including the Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith, a decision that was criticised by several politicians and commentators following his success in restoring the Northern Ireland Executive devolved government. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid resigned from the Cabinet and was replaced by Rishi Sunak; Javid later returned to Johnson's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in June 2021 following the resignation of Matt Hancock. Johnson reshuffled his cabinet again in September 2021. Changes included the dismissal of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson who had received significant criticism for his handling of disruption to education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dominic Raab was moved from foreign secretary to deputy prime minister and justice secretary. Raab was replaced as foreign secretary by Liz Truss. COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a serious crisis within the first few months of Johnson's second term. Johnson's non-attendance of five COBR briefings during the early months and the failure of the UK government to prepare for and control the outbreak has been criticised. The UK was among the last major European states to close schools, ban public events and order a lockdown. This response is thought by some scientists to have contributed to the UK's high death toll from COVID-19, which as of January 2021 was among the highest in the world. Reuters reported that scientists were critical of Johnson both for acting too slowly to stop the spread of COVID-19 and for mishandling the government's response; Politico quoted Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty as saying that an earlier initial lockdown would have significantly lowered the death toll. The BMJ published several editorials critical of the policies adopted during the country's public health response. Johnson's public communication over the virus and the UK's test and trace system were also criticised. On 3 March 2020, Johnson claimed to have shaken hands with COVID-19 patients in hospital on the same day that SAGE had advised the government to warn the public not to shake hands and minimise physical contact, though it was unclear whether the hospital he visited actually contained any coronavirus patients. He continued to shake hands publicly in the following days. On 23 March, a COVID-19 lockdown was imposed throughout the UK, except for a few limited purposes, backed up by new legal powers. On 27 March, it was announced that Johnson had tested positive for COVID-19. On 5 April, he was admitted to a hospital. The next day, he was moved to the hospital's intensive care unit. Johnson left intensive care on 9 April, and left hospital three days later to recuperate at Chequers. After a fortnight at Chequers, he returned to Downing Street on 26 April. Johnson later said that he had been given emergency oxygen while in intensive care, and that doctors had made preparations in case he died. A scandal in May 2020 involved Johnson's chief political advisor Dominic Cummings, who made a trip with his family to Durham during the March 2020 lockdown while experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. Both Cummings and Johnson rejected widespread calls that Cummings resign. Johnson's defence of Cummings and his refusal to sack him caused a widespread backlash. This resulted in a loss of confidence in the government and specifically its response to the pandemic, referred to as 'the Cummings effect' in The Lancet. Concerns were raised in the study that this could affect the public's compliance with pandemic restrictions. The Johnson ministry was accused of cronyism in their assignment of contracts related to the pandemic response. Procurement of government contracts for key COVID-19 supplies became less transparent as a result of emergency measures bypassing the usual competitive tendering process. In October 2020, Johnson conceded that the UK's test and trace system and its specially developed contact tracing app, which had been criticised for their cost and operational issues, had caused "frustrations". Johnson reportedly resisted calls from SAGE and within the government to enact a second lockdown throughout September as COVID-19 infections rose. In April 2021, Johnson denied allegations he had said he would rather "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" on 30 October 2020. The government enacted a second national lockdown on 31 October. Throughout December 2020, COVID-19 cases across the UK rose significantly, straining emergency services and hospitals. In response, the government enacted further restrictions to large parts of southern and eastern England and on 21 December shortened a planned household mixing period over Christmas. Britain began its COVID-19 vaccination programme in December 2020. Half of UK adults had received at least their first vaccine dose by 20 March 2021. A third lockdown for the whole of England was introduced on 6 January 2021. Record numbers of infections and daily deaths were recorded in the UK throughout January, and the government began exploring quarantine procedures on arrival. Johnson said he was "deeply sorry" and "take[s] full responsibility" as the UK passed 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, the first European country to do so, on 26 January. In July 2021, Johnson announced that most generalised public health restrictions in England would be lifted and replaced by recommendations. This took place despite an increase in cases driven by the Delta variant. In September 2021, Johnson was pictured in a cabinet meeting, with "at least 30 people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder", without anyone wearing masks and with all windows apparently closed, contradicting government advice. Johnson was also photographed without a face mask during a visit to a hospital in November. In December 2021, more stringent "Plan B" restrictions for England were put forward, a partial renewal of previous measures due to the increased incidence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. These proposals included face coverings to be required in more public settings, guidance to work from home wherever possible, and requirements of COVID-19 passports to enter certain venues. The government experienced the largest rebellion of Conservative MPs during Johnson's premiership, in opposition to these measures. Immigration In 2019, Johnson promised to reduce net migration to the United Kingdom (the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating) below 250,000 per year by the next election. In 2021, net migration to the UK was 488,000, up from 184,000 in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the migrants came from non-EU countries. As a result of Brexit, more EU nationals left the UK than arrived. In 2021, Johnson's government launched a scheme for Hongkongers following the Hong Kong national security law, with more than 200,000 Hong Kong residents immigrating to the UK. Long-term net migration to the UK reached a record high of 764,000 in 2022, with immigration at 1.26 million and emigration at 493,000. Legislative agenda At the State Opening of Parliament on 11 May 2021, a range of proposed laws were announced, including the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which would restore the royal prerogative to dissolve Parliament; a Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill to combat deplatforming at universities; an Online Safety Bill that would impose a statutory duty of care on online companies and empower Ofcom to block particular websites; and an Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill that would legally recognise animal sentience. Further laws would introduce mandatory voter identification at general elections, reform the national immigration system, and implement a levelling up policy to reduce imbalances between areas. 2021 Downing Street refurbishment controversy In April 2021, Cummings alleged that Johnson had arranged for donors to "secretly pay" for renovations on the private residence at 11 Downing Street. On 27 April Johnson asked the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, to hold a review about the refurbishment. On 28 April, the Electoral Commission announced it had opened a formal investigation. On the same day Johnson said that he had not broken any laws over the refurbishment and had met the requirements he was obliged to meet. During Prime Minister's Questions, the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, asked: "Who initially paid for the redecoration of his Downing Street flat?"; Johnson responded: "I paid for Downing Street's refurbishment personally." On 28 May Lord Geidt published a report on the allegations which concluded that Johnson did not breach the Ministerial Code and that no conflict, or reasonably perceived conflict, of interest arose. However, Lord Geidt expressed that it was "unwise" for Johnson to have proceeded without "more rigorous regard for how this would be funded". The Electoral Commission reported on 9 December that it found that the Conservative Party had failed to follow the law in not accurately reporting donations to the party from Lord Brownlow and imposed a £17,800 fine on the party. The Herald said the commission's report outlined how, in March, all the money paid by Brownlow and his company had been reimbursed, as had the payments made by the Conservative Party and Cabinet Office. Downing Street had said at the time that the full cost of the works had been met personally by the prime minister. Owen Paterson controversy In November 2021, Johnson backed a motion to block the suspension of Owen Paterson, a Conservative MP found to have abused his position by the independent standards commissioner after undertaking paid lobbying. The motion called for the creation of a new Conservative-majority committee to examine reforms of the standards investigation process. Many Conservative MPs refused to support the motion, and 13 defied a three-line whip to vote against it. Following the announcement by opposition parties that they would boycott the new committee, and faced with a backlash in the media and from MPs of all parties, the government announced that a new vote would take place on whether Paterson should be suspended. Paterson announced his resignation as an MP the same day. A by-election in Paterson's former constituency of North Shropshire saw the Liberal Democrat candidate, Helen Morgan, overturn a Conservative majority of nearly 23,000, the seventh largest swing in United Kingdom by-election history. Partygate scandal In December 2021, reports emerged that social gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff in Downing Street had taken place ahead of Christmas 2020 against COVID-19 regulations. Johnson denied these allegations. Following a leaked video showing Downing Street staff joking about a "fictional party", at a press conference rehearsal recorded days after one alleged party took place, Johnson apologised for the contents of the video and suggested he had been misled but had now ordered an inquiry. On 10 January 2022, ITV News reported that a planned party had taken place on 20 May 2020, during the first lockdown. ITV had obtained an email sent by principal private secretary Martin Reynolds to staff inviting them to "socially distanced drinks" in the garden of No. 10. At the time, people outdoors were not allowed to meet more than one person from outside their household. Two eyewitnesses later alleged that Johnson and Symonds attended, contradicting Johnson's insistence in December 2021 that there were "no parties". On 12 January 2022, Johnson apologised to MPs in the Commons for "attending an event in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown", stating he believed it was "a work event". He said that MPs should await the outcome of the independent inquiry, led by senior civil servant Sue Gray, which he said "will report as soon as possible". There were calls across the House for Johnson to resign. On 19 January, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford defected from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party. Conservative former minister David Davis called for Johnson to resign, quoting Leo Amery calling on Neville Chamberlain to resign during the Norway Debate in 1940, and saying: "You have sat there too long for all the good you have done. In the name of God, go." On 25 January, the Metropolitan Police's chief commander, Cressida Dick, announced that they were commencing investigations into the Downing Street Parties. An abbreviated version of the Sue Gray report into the controversy was released on 31 January, where Gray concluded there was a "failure of leadership" over the events that she had examined. The release of the full report was delayed pending the Metropolitan Police's investigation. In April 2022, Johnson was issued a fixed penalty notice as police determined that he committed a criminal offence by breaching the COVID-19 lockdown regulations. Johnson therefore became the first prime minister in British history to have been sanctioned for breaking the law while in office. According to Downing Street insiders, Johnson was involved in instigating a party on the occasion of Lee Cain leaving Number 10. What had begun as press office drinks became a party after Johnson arrived, gave a speech and poured drinks for staff. Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner said, "If the latest reports are true, it would mean that not only did the prime minister attend parties, but he had a hand in instigating at least one of them. He has deliberately misled the British people at every turn. The prime minister has demeaned his office." On 21 April, MPs voted to refer Johnson to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee to investigate whether he knowingly misled Parliament. Steve Baker said Johnson's "marvellous contrition... only lasted as long as it took to get out of the headmaster's study". Following the May 2022 local elections, many leading Conservatives in areas where the Conservatives had done badly blamed Johnson and calling on Johnson to resign. On 6 June, Graham Brady announced that the threshold for a vote on Johnson's leadership had been passed; the vote was scheduled for later that same day. On 3 March 2023, an interim report from the Commons Select Committee of Privileges said there was evidence that "strongly suggests" breaches of coronavirus regulations would have been "obvious" to Johnson. The report also said "There is evidence that those who were advising Mr Johnson about what to say to the press and in the House were themselves struggling to contend that some gatherings were within the rules". Johnson said none of the evidence showed he "knowingly" misled Parliament. The report stated that the Commons may have been misled on multiple occasions and Johnson "did not correct the statements [at the] earliest opportunity". The committee also stated that Johnson had "personal knowledge" over lockdown gatherings in No 10, which he could have disclosed. Starmer slur controversy While speaking in the House of Commons in January 2022, Johnson falsely blamed Starmer for the non-prosecution of the serial sex offender Jimmy Savile when Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions in the Crown Prosecution Service. Starmer was DPP in the years immediately prior to Savile's death but there is no evidence he was involved in the decision to not have him prosecuted. A few days later, Johnson defended his comments but conceded that Starmer "had nothing to do personally with those decisions" by the CPS not to investigate Savile. Vote of confidence In the week prior to and throughout the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II in June 2022, it had been speculated that a vote of confidence in Johnson's leadership of the Conservative Party might soon occur. On 6 June 2022, the Conservative Party announced that Johnson would face a vote of confidence in his leadership of the party, after at least 54 Conservative MPs wrote no-confidence letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee. Johnson won the vote, with 211 in favour and 148 against. The number of rebel MPs was larger than had been expected. The result was described by Keir Starmer as the "beginning of the end" for Johnson's premiership. June 2022 by-elections Following heavy Conservative defeats in the 23 June 2022 by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, former party leader Michael Howard called for Johnson to resign, saying: "[Mr Johnson's] biggest asset has always been his ability to win votes but I'm afraid yesterday's results make it clear that he no longer has that ability." Oliver Dowden, the Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, resigned saying: "somebody must take responsibility". Johnson announced that he had no intention of changing or resigning; senior Conservatives accused him of increasingly "delusional" behaviour. On 26 June 2022 Johnson said: "At the moment I'm thinking actively about the third term and what could happen then, but I will review that when I get to it." He also claimed that he intended to stay as prime minister until the mid-2030s, although Number 10 later said that he had been joking. Pincher scandal Government Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher resigned on 30 June 2022, saying he had "drunk far too much" the night before at the Carlton Club in St James's, London, and having "embarrassed myself and other people". It was later alleged that he sexually assaulted two men, and he was suspended as an MP. On 3 July 2022 six new allegations against Pincher emerged, involving behaviour over a decade. Johnson allegedly referred to Pincher as "handsy" and Cummings said Johnson joked about him being "Pincher by name, pincher by nature" in 2020, leading to calls for Johnson to explain how much he knew about Pincher's behaviour. Ministers initially said that Johnson was unaware of any specific complaints against Pincher when he was appointed as deputy chief whip. The BBC then reported, however, that an official complaint and subsequent investigation into Pincher, while he was at the Foreign Office (July 2019 to February 2020), had confirmed his misconduct, and that Johnson had been made aware at that time. Sir Simon McDonald, former Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, later said that the prime minister had been briefed "in person" about Pincher. Mass resignations On 5 July 2022, Sunak and Javid resigned within minutes of each other, followed over the next 24 hours by 11 other ministers, as well as Conservative MPs from parliamentary private secretary and other Government positions; other backbenchers also withdrew their support for Johnson. Many of the MPs stated that the Pincher affair had led them to change their minds on the suitability of Johnson to be prime minister. It was reported on 6 July that Johnson could face another confidence vote, with members of the 1922 Committee considering changing the rules as soon as that evening to allow this to happen. By 6 July, there had been a total of 31 resignations. As of May 2022, the government comprised 122 ministers. Announcement of resignation By the morning of 7 July, the newly installed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi, publicly stated his belief that Johnson should resign. Within hours, the BBC and other media reported Johnson's intention to resign. Johnson announced his resignation at 12.30 pm. I know that there will be many who are relieved, but perhaps quite a few who will be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to give up the best job in the world - but them's the breaks. Upon reports of his resignation, the pound sterling temporarily strengthened in value, and UK stocks rose. He remained as prime minister until September, while the Conservative Party chose a new leader. On 5 September 2022, it was announced that Liz Truss had won the Conservative leadership election. She became prime minister the next day. During his farewell speech outside 10 Downing Street on 6 September 2022 Johnson referred to the Roman statesman Cincinnatus. Some commentators noted that, while, as Johnson said, Cincinnatus returned to his plough, he was also later recalled to power. Environmental policies In November 2020, Johnson announced a 10-point plan for a "green industrial revolution", to include ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, quadrupling the amount of offshore wind power capacity within a decade, funding emissions-cutting proposals, and spurning a proposed green post-COVID-19 recovery. In 2021, the Johnson government announced plans to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035. Johnson announced that the UK would join the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 at the COP26 summit, which the UK hosted. Before the summit, representatives of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth criticised Johnson's comments on plans to introduce "enforceable limits" on carbon emissions for other countries, which they accused of being unsubstantive, and his government faced criticism from environmental groups for cutting taxes on domestic air travel, given the environmental impact of aviation. In April 2022, Johnson announced that eight more nuclear reactors would be built on existing nuclear power plant sites and called for an expansion in wind energy. Under these plans, up to 95% of the UK's electricity could come from low-carbon power sources by 2030. Foreign policy Johnson supported the European Union–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas. Johnson's government placed importance on the "Special Relationship" with the United States. In 2022, his government introduced an asylum deal whereby people entering the UK illegally would be sent to Rwanda. Hong Kong and China Johnson said in July 2019 that his government would be very "pro-China" in an interview with the Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix TV. He voiced support for Chinese president Xi Jinping's infrastructure investment effort, the Belt and Road Initiative, and promised to keep the United Kingdom "the most open economy in Europe" for Chinese investment. In June 2020, Johnson announced that if China were to continue pursuing the Hong Kong national security law, the UK would offer 350,000 Hong Kong residents who are British National (Overseas) passport holders, and 2.6 million other eligible individuals, the chance to move to the UK. China accused the UK of interfering in its internal affairs. Johnson declined to describe the Chinese government's treatment of the Uyghur people as "genocide", despite use of the term by the United States. Johnson's government argued that genocide should be decided by the International Criminal Court. Nevertheless, he called what is happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as "utterly abhorrent". The UK joined the AUKUS defence pact with the United States and Australia in September 2021. The pact was denounced by China and caused a French backlash, as it usurped existing plans for Australia to procure French submarines. Afghanistan On 8 July 2021, the day after saying he was "apprehensive" about the future of Afghanistan following what was then the impending withdrawal of US troops, while announcing the near completion of British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Johnson expressed the view that there was "no military path to victory for the Taliban". Following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, he blamed the United States for the crisis, saying that NATO alliance members "could not continue this US-led mission, a mission conceived and executed in support of America, without American logistics, without US air power and without American might". UK–EU trade negotiation Following the formal withdrawal from the European Union in January 2020, Johnson's government entered trade negotiations with the EU. Fisheries was a major topic of the negotiations. On 16 October 2020 Johnson said that the UK "must get ready" for no trade deal with the EU. It was announced on 24 December 2020 that the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement had been reached; it came into force formally on 1 May. A fisheries dispute between the UK and France occurred shortly afterwards. Introduction of new UK border checks were delayed until 2022 to minimise the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2022, Johnson readied a draft that would unilaterally change parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, citing issues with medical supplies and cuts in VAT. One of the thornier points of contention involves safety regulations for food and plants, where the British government is opposed to a closer alignment with existing EU regulations. The EU rebuffed the idea of changing the text of the treaty to accommodate the British. A unilateral override by the UK would be tantamount to a breach of the agreement. As Johnson sought a more conciliatory tone, sources within the government began to stress that the draft is designed to be an "insurance policy" and would take years to become law. Russia and Ukraine In November 2021, Johnson warned that the European Union faces "a choice" between "sticking up for Ukraine" and approving the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Europe. During the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Johnson's government warned the Russian Government not to invade Donbas. Johnson and Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call to work towards a "peaceful resolution". On 1 February 2022, Johnson arrived in Kyiv on a diplomatic visit. He called the presence of the Russian Armed Forces near the Russia–Ukraine border "the biggest security crisis that Europe has faced for decades". The Kremlin denied that it wanted to attack Ukraine. On 20 February 2022, Johnson warned that Russia is planning the "biggest war in Europe since 1945" as Putin intends to invade and encircle Kyiv. On 21 February 2022, Johnson condemned Russia's diplomatic recognition of two self-proclaimed republics in Donbas. On 24 February 2022, Johnson condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and ensured the UK joined in international sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs. He later announced the UK would phase out Russian oil by the end of 2022. On 9 April 2022, Johnson travelled to Kyiv and met the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On 16 April 2022, Russia's Ministry for Foreign Affairs banned Johnson and a number of senior British politicians from visiting Russia, saying that Britain aimed to isolate Russia politically and supply "the Kyiv regime with lethal weapons and coordinating similar efforts on the part of NATO". Within Ukraine, Johnson is praised by many as a supporter of anti-Russian sanctions and military aid for Ukraine. On 3 May, Johnson virtually addressed the Ukrainian Parliament, becoming the first world leader to speak in Ukraine since the invasion. He pledged an extra £300m in military aid to Ukraine, praised Ukraine's resistance to Russia as its "finest hour" and said that the West had been "too slow to grasp what was actually happening" prior to Russia's invasion. In July 2022, Johnson warned that it would be a mistake to cease fire and freeze the conflict. In August 2022, Johnson blamed Vladimir Putin for the emerging global energy crisis. Post-premiership (2022–present) After stepping down, Johnson reverted to being a backbench MP. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Johnson took part in Charles III's Accession Council. After Liz Truss announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader on 20 October 2022, Johnson received more than the 100 MPs' nominations required to stand in the leadership election, but soon announced that he would not stand. In May 2023, Johnson was referred to the police by the Cabinet Office regarding previously unknown potential breaches of COVID regulations between June 2020 and May 2021, to which Johnson's office issued a statement criticising the "unfounded suggestions" which "has all the hallmarks of yet another politically motivated stitch-up". On 9 June 2023, the publication of his 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours led to a public feud with Sunak. Johnson supporter Nadine Dorries announced that she was resigning as an MP due to not being included as a peer on the honours list. The same day, after receiving a confidential report from a committee of the House of Commons that was looking into whether he had lied to Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties, Johnson announced his resignation as MP. His resignation statement said he is "not alone in thinking that there is a witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result". On 15 June, the Commons Privileges Committee published their report, which concluded that Johnson lied to and deliberately misled the House of Commons over Partygate, misled the Committee themselves during the hearing, and acted in contempt of the Committee itself through a "campaign of abuse and intimidation". The report noted that had Johnson still been an MP, the Committee would have recommended he be suspended from Parliament for 90 days. The contents of the report represented a recommendation to the House of Commons, which accepted the report by 354 votes to seven.On 16 June, Johnson was unveiled as a new columnist for the Daily Mail. The news website Politico Europe reported that Johnson would be paid a "very-high six-figure sum". Johnson reportedly informed the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments half an hour before the columnist assignment was publicly announced. The committee ruled that Johnson committed a "clear breach" of the rules since he had not sought its advice on the matter within an appropriate timeframe. In October 2023, Johnson announced he would join the television channel GB News as a commentator and programme maker for the next general election and US presidential election. Johnson condemned Hamas' attack on Israel, saying "there can be no moral equivalence between the terrorism of Hamas and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces". He rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during the Israel–Hamas war, and criticised pro-Palestinian protests in the UK. On 5 November 2023, Johnson visited Israel to express solidarity. In February 2024, Johnson had a private meeting with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. In March 2024, The Times reported that Johnson is expected to campaign for the Conservatives in the next General Election. On 2 May 2024 Johnson was turned away from his polling station for the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner, after forgetting to bring valid photographic identification, a requirement of the Elections Act, which Johnson introduced while in office. When he arrived he had nothing to prove his identity except the sleeve of his copy of Prospect magazine, on which his name and address had been printed. He said that when he returned a few minutes later, with his driving licence, he was then able to vote. During the 2024 general election, Johnson campaigned for the Conservatives, who lost the election in a landslide to Labour. Johnson's memoirs Unleashed are scheduled to be released in October 2024. Political positions and ideology Ideologically, Johnson has been described as a "One-Nation Tory". Political scientists have described Johnson's political positions as ambiguous and contradictory, encompassing nativist, authoritarian and free market tendencies on the one hand, and one-nation liberal conservatism on the other. Some scholars have questioned Johnson's commitment to one-nation conservativism, instead characterising his ideology as flexible and populist. Purnell stated that Johnson regularly changed his opinion on political issues, commenting on what she perceived to be "an ideological emptiness beneath the staunch Tory exterior". During his tenure as mayor, Johnson gained a reputation as "a liberal, centre-ground politician", according to Business Insider. In 2012, the political scientist Tony Travers described Johnson as "a fairly classic—that is, small-state—mildly eurosceptic Conservative" who also embraced "modern social liberalism". The Guardian stated that while mayor, Johnson blended economic and social liberalism, with The Economist saying that in doing so Johnson "transcends his Tory identity" and adopts a more libertarian perspective. According to political scientist Richard Hayton, Johnson's premiership was about Brexit, which served as a "national cause". Johnson evoked the discourse of popular sovereignty and anti-establishment populism to portray Parliament as seeking to "sabotage" Brexit, and in doing so, presented himself "as the true representative of 'the people'". Scholars of comparative politics have drawn comparisons between Johnson and other populist leaders such as Donald Trump and Viktor Orban. Some commentators have likened Johnson's political style to Trumpism, although others have argued that Johnson's stance on matters such as social policy, immigration and free trade is liberal. Johnson biographer Gimson wrote that Johnson is economically and socially "a genuine liberal", although he retains a "Tory element" through his "love of existing institutions, and a recognition of the inevitability of hierarchy". In 2019, reacting to reports in The Sun, that Johnson had told cabinet colleagues he was "basically a Brexity Hezza", former deputy leader of the Conservative Party Michael Heseltine wrote: "I fear that any traces of liberal conservatism that still exist within the prime minister have long since been captured by the rightwing, foreigner-bashing, inward-looking view of the world that has come to characterise his fellow Brexiters." Environment Johnson expressed climate sceptical views in several columns, conflating the distinction between weather and climate and highlighting a factually incorrect claim by weather forecaster and conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn that reduced solar activity could lead to a "mini-Ice Age". Bloomberg News suggested that Johnson's interest in climate change increased after becoming prime minister, and suggested this could have been influenced by his wife Carrie Symonds and father Stanley Johnson, who are both environmental campaigners. In 2019 and 2020, Johnson expressed support for the UK to have "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and spoke about increasing ambition for mitigating climate change through carbon capture and storage and a renewable energy transition. During the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Johnson called for greater efforts towards climate change mitigation, and welcomed the prospect of coal phase-out. It was reported in 2022 that Johnson was convinced of the scientific consensus on climate change following a briefing by the chief scientist of the Met Office in January 2020, and subsequently made the issue a priority for his government. According to TheyWorkForYou as of 2022, Johnson has "generally voted against" what it described as "key measures to prevent climate change" while an MP, and other sources confirm this. Immigration and the European Union Purnell believed it was the influence of Johnson's maternal family that led to him developing "a genuine abhorrence of racial discrimination". In 2003, Johnson said, "I am not by any means an ultra-Eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it." As mayor, Johnson was known as a supporter of immigration. From 2009, he advocated a referendum on Britain's EU membership. In 2018, during Brexit negotiations, Johnson called for Britain to leave the Single Market and advocated a more liberal approach to immigration than that of Prime Minister May. He stated many people believed that Britain's EU membership had led to the suppression of British wages and said the EU was intent on creating a "superstate" that would seek to rob Britain of its sovereignty. In 2019, Johnson said he would take Britain out of the EU on 31 October whether there was a trade deal in place or not. Johnson also stated his opposition to a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. On 19 August 2019, Johnson wrote a letter to the EU asking for the removal of the "backstop" accord. The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, rejected the proposal. On 26 August 2019, Johnson said that Britain would not pay £39 billion for the withdrawal agreement were the UK to leave without a deal. The European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said there would be no further negotiation unless the UK agreed to pay the entire sum. Unionism and devolution Johnson described himself as a "fervent and passionate unionist". He proposed building an Irish Sea Bridge, but he later scrapped this initiative. The devolved administrations have criticised the Internal Market Bill for its re-centralisation of control over commerce. Public image Johnson has said that "humour is a utensil that you can use to sugar the pill and to get important points across". He is said to have a genuine desire to be liked. Johnson has been described as having a light-hearted and charming persona; many biographers and commentators suggest he has put significant effort into developing this version of himself. He has also been described as heavily focused on his own interests, with an often vitriolic or irresponsible way of conducting himself in private. Johnson has been described as a divisive, controversial figure in British politics. Supporters have praised him as witty and entertaining. Johnson has been accused of lying or making misleading statements throughout his career, and has been compared to former US president Donald Trump. He has been considered a figure with broad appeal outside of the usual Conservative support base. Johnson's premiership has been described by historians as the most controversial and scandal-affected since that of David Lloyd George about a century earlier. Personal life Since Johnson was born in New York City to British parents, he held British-American dual citizenship. In 2015, he agreed to pay capital gains tax to the US tax authorities on a property that he inherited in the UK. He renounced his US citizenship the following year. Johnson has knowledge of French, Italian, German, Spanish, Latin and Ancient Greek, frequently making classical allusions in his newspaper columns and his speeches. Sonia Purnell wrote in 2011 that Johnson was a "highly evasive figure" when it came to his personal life, who remained detached from others and who had few intimate friends. Among friends and family, Johnson is more commonly known as Al (short for his forename Alexander), rather than Boris. In 2007, Johnson said he had smoked cannabis before he went to university. He has also said he had used cocaine. Johnson partakes in cycling, tennis and pilates, and returned to road running in 2023. He was considered obese in 2018 and overweight in 2020, and has spoken of making efforts to lose weight. Johnson previously owned a £1.3 million buy-to-let townhouse in Camberwell, South London. According to HM Land Registry documents, he bought the four-bedroom property with his then-girlfriend Carrie Symonds in July 2019. The register of MPs' interests states that Johnson had a rental income of at least £10,000 a year. In 2023, Johnson and Symonds bought Brightwell Manor, a £3.8 million moated mansion in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire. Religion Johnson was baptised Catholic and later confirmed in the Church of England, but has said that his faith "comes and goes" and that he is not a serious practising Christian. In 2020, his son Wilfred was baptised Catholic. Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on 29 May 2021. Since he was baptised Catholic, but his previous weddings were not conferred by the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church considered them putatively invalid. Johnson holds ancient Greek statesman Pericles as a personal hero. According to Johnson's biographer, Andrew Gimson, regarding ancient Greek and Roman polytheism: "it is clear that [Johnson] is inspired by the Romans, and even more by the Greeks, and repelled by the early Christians". Johnson views secular humanism positively and sees it as owing more to the classical world than to Christian thinking. However, in 2021, Johnson was asked if he held pre-Christian beliefs, which he denied, saying, "Christianity is a superb ethical system and I would count myself as a kind of very, very bad Christian... Christianity makes a lot of sense to me." Relationships In 1987, Johnson married Allegra Mostyn-Owen, daughter of the art historian William Mostyn-Owen and Italian writer Gaia Servadio. The couple's marriage ended in divorce or annulment in 1993 and 12 days later Johnson married Marina Wheeler, a barrister, daughter of journalist Charles Wheeler. Five weeks later, their first child was born. They have four children: Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo. Between 2000 and 2004, Johnson had an affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt when he was its editor, resulting in a terminated pregnancy and a miscarriage. In April 2006, the News of the World alleged that Johnson was having an affair with Guardian journalist Anna Fazackerley. The pair did not comment; shortly afterward, Johnson employed Fazackerley. In 2009, Johnson fathered a daughter with Helen Macintyre, an arts consultant. In September 2021, Johnson stated that he had (then) six children, thereby denying the existence of further illegitimate children. In September 2018, Johnson and Wheeler issued a statement confirming that they had separated months earlier; they divorced in 2020. Jennifer Arcuri said that she had an affair with Johnson from 2012 to 2016. In 2019, Johnson was living with Carrie Symonds, the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent newspaper. Johnson and Symonds became engaged in late 2019 and their son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born in April 2020. On 29 May 2021, Johnson married Symonds at Westminster Cathedral. Their daughter, Romy Iris Charlotte Johnson, was born in December 2021. Their third child, a son named Frank Alfred Odysseus Johnson, was born in July 2023. Family and ancestors Johnson is the eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative member of the European Parliament, and the painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett), the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, president of the European Commission of Human Rights. His younger siblings are Rachel Johnson, a writer and journalist, Leo Johnson, a broadcaster, and Jo Johnson, ex-minister of state and former Conservative MP for Orpington, who resigned from his brother's government in September 2019 and is now a member of the House of Lords. Johnson's stepmother, Jenny, the second wife of his father Stanley, is the stepdaughter of Teddy Sieff, the former chairman of Marks & Spencer. Having been a member of the Conservatives between 2008 and 2011, Rachel Johnson joined the Liberal Democrats in 2017. She stood as a candidate for Change UK in the 2019 European Elections. Johnson also has two half-siblings, Julia and Maximilian, through his father's later marriage to Jennifer Kidd. Johnson's paternal grandfather, Wilfred Johnson, was an RAF pilot in Coastal Command during the Second World War. Wilfred Johnson's father was the Ottoman Interior Minister and journalist Ali Kemal. Ali Kemal's father was a Turk while his mother was a Circassian reputedly of slave origin. His other paternal ancestry includes English, German and French; one of his German ancestors was said to be the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg and thus a descendant of George II of Great Britain, which was later confirmed on an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? Johnson's mother is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a palaeographer and a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US, and Pennsylvania-born Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, a translator of Thomas Mann. Referring to his varied ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot". Johnson was given the middle name "Boris" after a White Russian émigré named Boris Litwin, who was a friend of his parents. Honours Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) from Brunel University London, 2007 Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Hon FRIBA), 2011 Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK, 26 January 2014 Sworn in as a Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 15 July 2016, upon his appointment as foreign secretary. This gave him the honorific title "The Right Honourable" for life. Medical Education Ig Nobel Prize, 2020. Honorary Citizen of Odesa, 2 July 2022 Member of the Order of Liberty (Ukraine), 24 August 2022 Honorary Citizen of Kyiv, 19 January 2023 Honorary Doctorate from Ivan Franko National University, Lviv Works Notes References Footnotes Sources Further reading Dale, Iain. The Little Book of Boris. (Harriman House Ltd., 2007) ISBN 978-1-905641-64-2 Gimson, Andrew. Boris: The Adventures of Boris Johnson (Simon & Schuster, 2012). Heppell, Timothy; McMeeking, Thomas (2021). "The Conservative Party Leadership Transition from Theresa May to Boris Johnson: Party Popularity and Leadership Satisfaction". Representation. 57 (1): 59–73. doi:10.1080/00344893.2020.1778512. S2CID 225753305. Johnson, Stanley (2009). Stanley I Presume. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-729673-6. Retrieved 30 July 2022. Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell. Johnson at 10 (Atlantic, 2023) O'Toole, Fintan, "The King of Little England", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVIII, no. 10 (10 June 2021), pp. 44–46. Vasudevan, A. The Thinking Man's Idiot: The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson (New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd., 2008) ISBN 978-1-84773-359-7 External links Official website Boris Johnson on Twitter Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom Contributions in Parliament at Hansard Appearances on C-SPAN Boris Johnson at IMDb Boris Johnson, columnist — The Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson on the Muck Rack journalist listing site Portraits of Boris Johnson at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Jeremy_Corbyn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. An independent, Corbyn was a member of the Labour Party from 1965 until his expulsion in 2024, and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus. He served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. Corbyn identifies ideologically as a socialist on the political left. Born in Chippenham, Wiltshire, Corbyn joined the Labour Party as a teenager. Moving to London, he became a trade union representative. In 1974, he was elected to Haringey Council and became Secretary of Hornsey Constituency Labour Party until elected as the MP for Islington North in 1983. His activism has included Anti-Fascist Action, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and advocating for a united Ireland and Palestinian statehood. As a backbencher, Corbyn routinely voted against the Labour whip, including New Labour governments. A vocal opponent of the Iraq War, he chaired the Stop the War Coalition from 2011 to 2015, and received the Gandhi International Peace Award and Seán MacBride Peace Prize. Following Ed Miliband's resignation after the party had lost the 2015 general election, Corbyn won the 2015 party leadership election to succeed him. The Labour Party's membership increased sharply, both during the leadership campaign and following his election. Taking the party to the left, Corbyn advocated renationalising public utilities and railways, a less interventionist military policy, and reversals of austerity cuts to welfare and public services. Although he had sometimes been critical of the European Union (EU), he supported the Remain campaign in the 2016 EU membership referendum. After Labour MPs sought to remove him in 2016 through a leadership challenge, he won a second leadership contest against Owen Smith. Despite hostile treatment from the media, in the 2017 general election Corbyn led Labour to increase its vote share by 10 percentage points to 40 per cent, their largest rise since the 1945 general election. During his tenure as leader, Corbyn was criticised for the antisemitism within the party. He condemned antisemitism and apologised for its presence, while his leadership saw a strengthening of disciplinary procedures regarding hate speech and racism. In 2019, after deadlock in Parliament over Brexit, Corbyn endorsed holding a referendum on the withdrawal agreement, with a personal stance of neutrality. In the 2019 general election, Labour's vote share fell to 32 per cent, leading to a loss of 60 seats, leaving it with 202, its fewest since the 1935 general election. Corbyn remained Labour leader for four months while the leadership election to replace him took place. His resignation as Labour leader formally took effect in April 2020 following the election of Keir Starmer, who led the party to victory at the next general election in 2024. After asserting that the scale of antisemitism had been overstated for political reasons, Corbyn was suspended from the party in 2020. In May 2024, after the 2024 general election had been called, Corbyn was not allowed to stand as a Labour candidate for his constituency, and subsequently announced he would stand as an independent candidate for Islington North; he was then expelled from Labour. He won re-election with a majority of 7,247. Early life Jeremy Bernard Corbyn was born on 26 May 1949 in Chippenham, Wiltshire, the son of mathematics teacher Naomi Loveday (née Josling; 1915–1987) and electrical engineer and power rectifier expert David Benjamin Corbyn (1915–1986). He has three elder brothers; one of them, Piers Corbyn (born 1947), is a weather forecaster who later became known as a climate change denier and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. For the first seven years of his life, the family lived in Kington St Michael, Wiltshire. His parents were Labour Party members and peace campaigners who met in the 1930s at a committee meeting in support of the Spanish Republic at Conway Hall during the Spanish Civil War. When Corbyn was seven, the family moved to Pave Lane, Shropshire, where his father bought Yew Tree Manor, a 17th-century farmhouse which was once part of the Duke of Sutherland's Lilleshall estate. Corbyn attended Castle House School, an independent preparatory school near Newport, Shropshire, before becoming a day student at Newport's Adams Grammar School at the age of 11. While still at school, Corbyn became active in the League Against Cruel Sports and the Labour Party Young Socialists within The Wrekin. He joined the Labour Party at the age of 16. He achieved two A-Levels at grade E, the lowest possible passing grade, before leaving school at 18. Corbyn joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1966 while at school and later became one of its three vice-chairs and subsequently vice-president. Around this time, he also campaigned against the Vietnam War. After school, Corbyn worked briefly as a reporter for the local Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser newspaper. Around the age of 19, he spent two years doing Voluntary Service Overseas in Jamaica as a youth worker and geography teacher. He subsequently visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay throughout 1969 and 1970. While in Brazil, he participated in a student demonstration in São Paulo against the Brazilian military government. He also attended a May Day march in Santiago, where the atmosphere around Salvador Allende's Popular Unity alliance which swept to power in the Chilean elections of 1970 made an impression on him: "[I] noticed something very different from anything I had experienced... what Popular Unity and Allende had done was weld together the folk tradition, the song tradition, the artistic tradition and the intellectual tradition". Early career and political activities Returning to the UK in 1971, Corbyn worked as an official for the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers. He began a course in Trade Union Studies at North London Polytechnic but left after a year without a degree after a series of arguments with his tutors over the curriculum. He worked as a trade union organiser for the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, where his union was approached by Tony Benn and "encouraged ... to produce a blueprint for workers' control of British Leyland"; the plans did not proceed after Benn was moved to a different Department. Corbyn was appointed a member of a district health authority and in early 1974, at the age of 24, he was elected to Haringey Council from South Hornsey ward. After boundary changes in 1978 he was re-elected in Harringay ward as councillor, remaining so until 1983. As a delegate from Hornsey to the Labour Party Conference in 1978, Corbyn successfully moved a motion calling for dentists to be employed by the National Health Service (NHS) rather than as private contractors. He also spoke in another debate, describing a motion calling for greater support for law and order as "more appropriate to the National Front than to the Labour Party". Corbyn became the local Labour Party's agent and organiser, and had responsibility for the 1979 general election campaign in Hornsey. Around this time, he became involved with the London Labour Briefing, where he was a contributor. Described by The Times in 1981 as "Briefing's founder", The Economist in a 1982 article named Corbyn as "Briefing's general secretary figure", as did a profile on Corbyn compiled by parliamentary biographer Andrew Roth in 2004, which states that he joined the editorial board as General Secretary in 1979. Michael Crick, in the 2016 edition of his book Militant, says that Corbyn was "a member of the editorial board", as does Lansley, Goss and Wolmar's 1989 work The Rise and Fall of the Municipal Left. Corbyn said in 2017 that these reports were inaccurate, telling Sophy Ridge: "I read the magazine. I wrote for the magazine. I was not a member of the editorial board. I didn't agree with it." He worked on Tony Benn's unsuccessful deputy leadership campaign in 1981. Corbyn was keen to allow former International Marxist Group member Tariq Ali to join the party, despite Labour's National Executive having declared him unacceptable, and declared that "so far as we are concerned ... he's a member of the party and he'll be issued with a card." In May 1982, when Corbyn was chairman of the Constituency Labour Party, Ali was given a party card signed by Corbyn; in November, the local party voted by 17 to 14 to insist on Ali's membership "up to and including the point of disbandment of the party". In the July 1982 edition of Briefing, Corbyn opposed expulsions of the Trotskyist and entryist group Militant, saying that "If expulsions are in order for Militant, they should apply to us too." In the same year, he was the "provisional convener" of "Defeat the Witch-Hunt Campaign", based at Corbyn's then address. The Metropolitan Police's Special Branch monitored Corbyn for two decades, until the early 2000s, as he was "deemed to be a subversive". According to the Labour Party, "The Security Services kept files on many peace and Labour movement campaigners at the time, including anti-Apartheid activists and trade unionists". Parliamentary backbencher (1983–2015) Labour in opposition (1982–1997) Corbyn was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the constituency of Islington North, in February 1982, winning the final ballot for selection by 39 votes against 35 for GLC councillor Paul Boateng, who in 1987 became one of the first three Black British Members of Parliament (MP). At the 1983 general election he was elected MP for the constituency, defeating the Independent Labour incumbent Michael O'Halloran, and immediately joined the socialist Campaign Group, later becoming secretary of the group. Shortly after being elected to Parliament, he began writing a weekly column for the left-wing Morning Star newspaper. In May 2015, he said that "the Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media". In February 2017, the Morning Star said of Corbyn: "He has been bullied, betrayed and ridiculed, and yet he carries on with the same grace and care he always shows to others – however objectionable their behaviour and treatment of him might be." In 1983, Corbyn spoke on a "no socialism without gay liberation" platform and continued to campaign for LGBT rights. He was a campaigner against apartheid in South Africa, serving on the National Executive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and was arrested in 1984 while demonstrating outside South Africa House, leading, decades later, to a viral image of Corbyn being arrested circulated by supporters on social media. This was as a member of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (CLAAG) who carried out a "non-stop picket" for 1,408 days to campaign for Nelson Mandela's release from prison. The Anti-Apartheid Movement did not support this protest, as they had agreed not to demonstrate within 30 feet of the embassy, and the picket failed to gain support from the London ANC; Mandela's failure to respond to CLAAG following his release from prison in 1990 is frequently described as a 'snub'. He supported the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1985, he invited striking miners into the gallery of the House of Commons; they were expelled for shouting: "Coal not dole". At the end of the strike Corbyn was given a medallion by the miners in recognition of his help. In 1985, he was appointed national secretary of the newly launched Anti-Fascist Action. During the BBC's Newsnight in 1984, Conservative MP Terry Dicks said that so-called Labour "scruffs" (such as Corbyn, who at this time was known for wearing an old polo-necked sweater to the Commons) should be banned from addressing the House of Commons unless they maintained higher standards. Corbyn responded, saying that: "It's not a fashion parade, it's not a gentleman's club, it's not a bankers' institute, it's a place where the people are represented." In 1990, Corbyn opposed the poll tax (formally known as the Community Charge) and nearly went to jail for not paying the tax. He appeared in court the following year as a result. Corbyn supported the campaign to overturn the convictions of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami for the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London which argued that there was insufficient evidence to tie them to the act, along with Amnesty International, Unison and a number of journalists and other MPs. Botmeh and Alami had admitted possessing explosives and guns but denied they were for use in Britain. The convictions were upheld by the High Court of Justice in 2001 and by the European Court of Human Rights in 2007. Corbyn sat on the Social Security Select Committee from 1992 to 1997. Irish politics A longstanding supporter of a united Ireland, in the 1980s Corbyn met Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams a number of times. Corbyn consistently stated that he maintained links with Sinn Fein in order to work for a resolution to the armed conflict. According to The Sunday Times, Corbyn was involved in over 72 events connected with Sinn Féin or other pro-republican groups during the period of the IRA's paramilitary campaign. Corbyn met Adams at the 1983 and 1989 Labour conferences (facilitated by pro-IRA Red Action) and in 1983 at Westminster, along with a number of other Labour MPs. In 1984, Corbyn and Ken Livingstone invited Adams, two convicted IRA volunteers and other members of Sinn Féin to Westminster. He was criticised by the Labour Party leadership for the meeting, which took place two weeks after the IRA's bombing of the Conservative Party leadership that killed five people. During the 1980s he campaigned on behalf of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, who were wrongly convicted of responsibility for IRA bombings in England in the mid-1970s. In 1986, Corbyn was arrested with 15 demonstrators protesting against what they saw as weak evidence and poor treatment during the trial of a group of IRA members including Patrick Magee, who was convicted of the Brighton hotel bombing and other attacks. After refusing police requests to move from outside the court, Corbyn and the other protesters were arrested for obstruction and held for five hours before being released on bail, but were not charged. In 1987, Corbyn attended a commemoration by the Wolfe Tone Society in London for eight IRA members who were killed by Special Air Service soldiers while attacking a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station in Loughgall, County Armagh. At the commemoration, he told his fellow attendees that "I'm happy to commemorate all those who died fighting for an independent Ireland" and attacked the British government's policies in Northern Ireland, calling for all British troops to be withdrawn from the region. Corbyn subsequently said that he had attended the event, which included a minute of silence for the eight IRA members, to "call for a peace and dialogue process". He voted against the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, saying "We believe that the agreement strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties, and those of us who wish to see a United Ireland oppose the agreement for that reason." In the early 1990s, MI5 opened a file on Corbyn to monitor his links to the IRA. In 1994, Corbyn signed a Commons motion condemning the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, which killed 21 people. A short time after IRA plans to bomb London were foiled in 1996, Corbyn invited Adams to the House of Commons for a press conference to promote Adams' autobiography, Before the Dawn. Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam and Labour leader Tony Blair condemned the invitation, with Mowlam arguing that it was detrimental to the peace process, and Blair threatening disciplinary action. Adams cancelled the event, to save further embarrassment to Corbyn and to avoid negative publicity. In 1998, he voted for the Good Friday Agreement, saying he looked forward to "peace, hope and reconciliation in Ireland in the future." In 2017, Corbyn said that he had "never met the IRA", although Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott later clarified that although he had met members of the IRA, "he met with them in their capacity as activists in Sinn Fein". Labour in government (1997–2010) Between 1997 and 2010, during the New Labour governments, Corbyn was the Labour MP who voted most often against the party whip, including three-line whip votes. In 2005 he was identified as the second most rebellious Labour MP of all time during the New Labour governments. He was the most rebellious Labour MP in the 1997–2001 Parliament, the 2001–2005 Parliament and the 2005–2010 Parliament, defying the whip 428 times while Labour was in power. Jacobin described him as "a figure who for decades challenged them [Labour Party elites] from the backbench as one of the most rebellious left-wing members of parliament". Corbyn has called for Tony Blair to be investigated for alleged war crimes during the Iraq War. In July 2016, the Chilcot Report of the Iraq Inquiry was issued, criticising Blair for joining the United States in the war against Iraq. Subsequently, Corbyn – who had voted against military action against Iraq – gave a speech in Westminster commenting: "I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003" which he called an "act of military aggression launched on a false pretext" something that has "long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international opinion". Corbyn specifically apologised to "the people of Iraq"; to the families of British soldiers who died in Iraq or returned injured; and to "the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined by the way in which the decision to go to war was taken on." Corbyn sat on the London Regional Select Committee from 2009 to 2010. Stop the War Coalition and anti-war activism In October 2001, Corbyn was elected to the steering committee of the Stop the War Coalition, which was formed to oppose the War in Afghanistan which started later that year. In 2002, Corbyn reported unrest : "there is disquiet...about issues of foreign policy" among some members of the Labour party. He cited "the deployment of troops to Afghanistan and the threat of bombing Iraq" as examples. He was vehemently opposed to Britain's involvement in the Iraq War in 2003, and spoke at dozens of anti-war rallies in Britain and overseas. He spoke at the February anti-Iraq War protest which was said to be the largest such protest in British political history. At the same time, he expressed support for the Iraqi insurgency and the Palestinian intifada when he signed the second Cairo Declaration in December 2003, which said "The Iraqis themselves are now engaged in a titanic struggle to rid their country of occupying forces. The Palestinian intifada continues under the most difficult circumstances. The US administration threatens Iran and other countries on a daily basis. Now is the time to draw together the forces of resistance in the Arab world and from around the globe." In 2006, Corbyn was one of 12 Labour MPs to support Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party's call for a parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq War. He was elected chair of the coalition in succession to Andrew Murray in September 2011, but resigned once he became Leader of the Labour Party in September 2015. Parliamentary groups and activism Corbyn is a member of a number of Parliamentary Trade Union Groups: he is sponsored by several trade unions, including UNISON, Unite and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. He is a supporter of the Unite Against Fascism pressure group. Corbyn was chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Chagos Islands, chair of the APPG on Mexico, Vice-Chair of the APPG on Latin America and vice-chair of the APPG on Human Rights. He has advocated for the rights of the forcibly removed Chagossians to return to the British Indian Ocean Territory. Corbyn appeared on a call-in show on Press TV, an Iranian government television channel, several times between 2009 and 2012. He was criticised for appearing on the channel in light of Iran executing and imprisoning homosexuals, as well as Corbyn not questioning contributors who called the BBC "Zionist liars" and described Israel as a "disease". Corbyn said in response that he used the programme to address "human rights issues" and that his appearance fee was "not an enormous amount" and was used to help meet constituency office costs. Corbyn's final appearance was six months after the network was fined by Ofcom for its part in filming an interview with Maziar Bahari, an Iranian journalist, saying the interview had been held under duress and after torture. Labour in opposition (2010–2015) In the 2010 Labour Party leadership election, Corbyn supported Diane Abbott in the first round in which she was eliminated; thereafter, he supported Ed Miliband. Corbyn was one of 16 signatories to an open letter to Ed Miliband in January 2015 calling for Labour to make a commitment to opposing further austerity, to take rail franchises back into public ownership, and to strengthen collective bargaining arrangements. Corbyn sat on the Justice Select Committee from 2010 to 2015. Before becoming party leader Corbyn had been returned as member of Parliament for Islington North seven times, gaining 60.24% of the vote and a majority of 21,194 in the 2015 general election. Leadership elections Following the Labour Party's defeat at the general election on 7 May 2015, Ed Miliband resigned as its party leader, triggering a leadership election. Corbyn decided to stand as a candidate, having been disillusioned by the lack of a left-wing voice, and said to his local newspaper, The Islington Tribune, that he would have a "clear anti-austerity platform". He also said he would vote to scrap the Trident nuclear weapons system and would "seek to withdraw from Nato". He suggested that Britain should establish a national investment bank to boost house-building and improve economic growth and lift wages in areas that had less investment in infrastructure. He would also aim to eliminate the current budget deficit over time and restore the 50p top rate of income tax. He added: "This decision is in response to an overwhelming call by Labour Party members who want to see a broader range of candidates and a thorough debate about the future of the party. I am standing to give Labour Party members a voice in this debate". He indicated that, if he were elected, policies that he put forward would need to be approved by party members before being adopted and that he wanted to "implement the democratic will of our party". The other candidates were Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham and Shadow Care Minister Liz Kendall. Several who nominated Corbyn later said they had ensured he had enough votes to stand, more to widen the political debate within the party than because of a desire or expectation that he would win. At the Second Reading of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill in July 2015, Corbyn joined 47 Labour MPs to oppose the Bill, describing it as "rotten and indefensible", whilst the other three leadership candidates abstained under direction from interim leader Harriet Harman. In August 2015, he called on Iain Duncan Smith to resign as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions after it was reported that thousands of disabled people had died after being found fit to work by Work Capability Assessments (instituted in 2008) between 2011 and 2014, although this was challenged by the government and by FullFact who said that the figure included those who had died and therefore their claim had ended, rather than being found fit for work. Corbyn rapidly became the frontrunner among the candidates and was perceived to benefit from a large influx of new members. Hundreds of supporters turned out to hear him speak at the hustings across the nation and their enthusiastic reception and support for him was dubbed "Corbynmania" by the press. Membership numbers continued to climb after the start of his leadership. In addition, following a rule change under Miliband, members of the public who supported Labour's aims and values could join the party as "registered supporters" for £3 and be entitled to vote in the election. There was speculation that the rule change would lead to Corbyn being elected by registered supporters without majority support from ordinary members. He was elected party leader in a landslide victory on 12 September 2015 with 59.5% of first-preference votes in the first round of voting. He would have won in the first round with 51% of votes, even without "£3 registered supporters", having gained the support of 49.6% of full members and 57.6% of affiliated supporters. His 40.5% majority was a larger proportional majority than that attained by Tony Blair in 1994. His margin of victory was said to be "the largest mandate ever won by a party leader". An internal Labour Party report, entitled The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014–2019, was leaked to the media in April 2020. The report stated that during the 2015 and 2016 leadership contests, staff members at Labour party headquarters looked for ways to exclude from voting members who they believed would vote for Corbyn. The staff members referred to this activity as "trot busting", "bashing trots" and "trot spotting". Corbynmania Corbyn was initially viewed as a token candidate for the left wing of the party and not expected to win. However, many new, young party members, who had joined after the membership fee had been reduced to £3, were attracted by what they saw as Corbyn's authentic, informal style and radical policies. Hundreds of supporters turned out to hear him speak at the hustings across the nation and their enthusiastic reception and support for him was dubbed "Corbynmania" by the press. Jonathan Dean characterised Corbynmania as a political fandom, comparable with the enthusiastic followings of popular media stars and other modern politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Justin Trudeau. Specific features included use of the #jezwecan hashtag, attendance at rallies and the posting of pictures such as selfies on social media. Artistic, merchandising and other activity consolidated and spread this fannish enthusiasm. This included a "Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister" (JC4PM) tour by celebrities such as Charlotte Church, Jeremy Hardy and Maxine Peake; a Corbyn superhero comic book; mash-ups and videos. Many of Corbyn's supporters felt he possessed personal qualities such as earnestness and modesty leading them to develop a sense of emotional attachment to him as individual. These were seen as cultish by critics such as Margaret Beckett who said in 2016 that the Labour Party had been turned into the "Jeremy Corbyn Fan Club". A chant of "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn" was adopted as an anthem or chorus by his supporters. Sung in the style of a football chant to the tune of a riff from "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, it attracted special attention at the Glastonbury Festival 2017, where Corbyn appeared and spoke to the crowds. Labour's weaker-than-expected performance in the 2018 local elections led to suggestions that Corbynmania had peaked. Leadership of the Labour Party (2015–2020) First term as Leader of the Opposition (2015–2017) After being elected leader, Corbyn became Leader of the Official Opposition and shortly thereafter his appointment to the Privy Council was announced. In Corbyn's first Prime Minister's Questions session as leader, he broke with the traditional format by asking the Prime Minister six questions he had received from members of the public, the result of his invitation to Labour Party members to send suggestions, for which he received around 40,000 emails. Corbyn stressed his desire to reduce the "theatrical" nature of the House of Commons, and his début was described in a Guardian editorial as "a good start" and a "long overdue" change to the tone of PMQs. He delivered his first Labour Party Conference address as leader on 29 September 2015. Party membership nearly doubled between the May 2015 election and October 2015, attributed largely to the election as leader of Corbyn. In September 2015 an unnamed senior serving general in the British Army stated that a mutiny by the Army could occur if a future Corbyn government moved to scrap Trident, pull out of Nato or reduce the size of the armed forces. The general said "the Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that. You can't put a maverick in charge of a country's security". In July 2016, a study and analysis by academics from the London School of Economics of national newspaper articles about Corbyn in the first months of his leadership of Labour showed that 75% of them either distorted or failed to represent his actual views on subjects. 2017 general election The Labour campaign in the 2017 general election focused on social issues such as health care, education and ending austerity. Corbyn's election campaign was run under the slogan "For the Many, Not the Few" and featured rallies with a large audience and connected with a grassroots following for the party, including appearing on stage in front of a crowd of 20,000 at the Wirral Live Festival in Prenton Park. Although Labour started the campaign as far as 20 points behind, and again finished as the second largest party in parliament, it increased its share of the popular vote to 40%, resulting in a net gain of 30 seats and a hung parliament. This was its greatest vote share since 2001. It was the first time Labour had made a net gain of seats since 1997, and the party's 9.6% increase in vote share was its largest in a single general election since 1945. This was partly attributed to the popularity of its 2017 Manifesto that promised to scrap tuition fees, address public sector pay, make housing more affordable, end austerity, nationalise the railways and provide school students with free lunches. 2019 general election and resignation In May 2019, Theresa May announced her resignation and stood down as prime minister in July, following the election of her replacement, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Corbyn said that Labour was ready to fight an election against Johnson. The 2019 Labour Party Manifesto included policies to increase funding for health, negotiate a Brexit deal and hold a referendum giving a choice between the deal and remain, raise the minimum wage, stop the age pension age increase, nationalise key industries, and replace universal credit. Due to the plans to nationalise the "big six" energy firms, the National Grid, the water industry, Royal Mail, the railways and the broadband arm of BT, the 2019 manifesto was widely considered as the most radical in several decades, more closely resembling Labour's politics of the 1970s than subsequent decades. During the campaign for the upcoming general elections, Corbyn was accused by the Hindu Council UK of promoting anti-Hindu sentiments following his disparaging comments on the caste system & his condemnation of the Hindu-right wing Bharatiya Janata Party led Indian government's revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Many Hindus living in the UK saw Corbyn's attitude towards Hindus to be heavily influenced by Pakistani Muslim leaders of his party, with whom he shared a common pro-Palestinian stance. The 2019 general election was the worst defeat in seats for Labour since 1935, with Labour winning just 202 out of 650 seats, their fourth successive election defeat. At 32.2%, Labour's share of the vote was down around eight points on the 2017 general election and is lower than that achieved by Neil Kinnock in 1992, although it was higher than in 2010 and 2015. In the aftermath, opinions differed to why the Labour Party was defeated to the extent it was. The Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell largely blamed Brexit and the media representation of the party. Tony Blair argued that the party's unclear position on Brexit and the economic policy pursued by the Corbyn leadership were to blame. Following the Labour Party's unsuccessful performance in the 2019 general election, Corbyn conceded defeat and stated that he intended to step down as leader following the election of a successor and that he would not lead the party into the next election. Corbyn himself was re-elected for Islington North with 64.3% of the vote share and a majority of 26,188 votes over the runner-up candidate representing the Liberal Democrats, with Labour's share of the vote falling by 8.7%. The Guardian described the results as a "realignment" of UK politics as the Conservative landslide took many traditionally Labour seats in England and Wales. Corbyn insisted that he had "pride in the manifesto" that Labour put forward and blamed the defeat on Brexit. According to polling by Lord Ashcroft, Corbyn was himself a major contribution to the party's defeat. Corbyn remained Labour leader for four months while the leadership election to replace him took place. His resignation as Labour leader formally took effect in April 2020 following the election of Keir Starmer. Post-leadership EHRC report and suspension Allegations of antisemitism within the party grew during Corbyn's leadership. Incidents involving Naz Shah in 2014 and Ken Livingstone in 2016 resulted in their suspension from party membership pending investigation. In response, Corbyn established the Chakrabarti Inquiry, which concluded that while the party was not "overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism," there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere" and "clear evidence of ignorant attitudes." In 2017, Labour Party rules were amended to categorize hate speech, including antisemitism, as a disciplinary matter. In 2018, Corbyn faced scrutiny for his response in 2012 to an allegedly antisemitic mural and for his association with Facebook groups, mainly pro-Palestinian, containing antisemitic posts. Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) adopted a definition of antisemitism, for disciplinary purposes, in July of that year, aligning with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition, with modified examples related to criticism of Israel. In September 2018, the NEC incorporated all 11 IHRA examples, unamended, into the party's code of conduct. In May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an inquiry into whether Labour had "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish." After asserting that the scale of antisemitism had been overstated for political reasons, Corbyn was suspended from the party in 2020. The Forde Report, written by lawyer Martin Forde in response to the dossier that was leaked in April 2020 (The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014–2019), was released on 19 July 2022, stating that: "[R]ather than confront the paramount need to deal with the profoundly serious issue of anti-Semitism in the party, both factions treated it as a factional weapon." It also described senior Labour staff as having displayed "deplorably factional and insensitive, and at times discriminatory, attitudes" towards Corbyn and his supporters, and detailed concerns by some staff about a "hierarchy of racism" in the party which ignored Black people. The report also expressed regret that Corbyn himself did not engage with the authors' request to interview him. Responding to this, Corbyn's former advisor Andrew Fisher wrote: "Forde confirms that reflection is necessary. Cultural change requires painstaking work, not glib assertions of change." Corbyn himself stated that report "calls into question the behaviour of senior officials in the party, in particular during the 2017 election" and that "wrongs must be righted." Peace and Justice Project On 13 December 2020, Corbyn announced the Project for Peace and Justice. Corbyn launched the project on 17 January 2021, and its affiliates include Christine Blower, Len McCluskey and Zarah Sultana. Rafael Correa said that he "welcome[d] the creation" of the project. Stop the War Coalition statement on Ukraine crisis On 18 February 2022, in the week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Corbyn alongside 11 Labour MPs cosigned a statement from the Stop the War Coalition opposing any war in Ukraine. The statement said that "the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia's security concerns", that NATO "should call a halt to its eastward expansion", and that the British government's sending of arms to Ukraine and troops to eastern Europe served "no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns". The statement's authors also said that they "refute [sic] the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance". On the evening of 24 February, the first day of the invasion, Labour chief whip Alan Campbell wrote to all 11 Labour MPs who had signed the statement, requesting that they withdraw their signatures. All 11 agreed to do so the same evening. Corbyn and fellow former Labour independent MP Claudia Webbe did not withdraw their signatures from the statement, though David Lammy urged Corbyn to do so. Expulsion from the Labour Party and 2024 general election Media speculation that Corbyn would contest the 2024 general election as an Independent was reported in October 2023. Despite "unanimous support" from his Constituency Labour Party (CLP), Corbyn was not permitted to stand as a Labour parliamentary candidate. After announcing on 24 May 2024 that he would stand as an independent parliamentary candidate for Islington North, he was fully expelled from the Labour Party. He was endorsed by Mick Lynch of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. Corbyn responded to Keir Starmer's claim of knowing the party would lose the 2019 election by saying "Well, he never said that to me, at any time. And so I just think rewriting history is no help. It shows double standards, shall we say, that he now says he always thought that but he never said it at the time or anything about it. He was part of the campaign. He and I spoke together at events and I find it actually quite sad." A poll released just over two weeks before the election showed Corbyn in second behind Labour candidate Praful Nargund. Leading members of the Islington North CLP resigned in order to support Corbyn, while also criticising the manner in which Nargund was selected as Islington North's candidate. Corbyn was comfortably re-elected as an independent, even as Labour won a landslide victory in the general election. His majority over Nargund was over 7,000. Policies and views Corbyn self-identifies as a socialist. He has also been referred to as a "mainstream [Scandinavian] social democrat". He advocates reversing austerity cuts to public services and some welfare funding made since 2010, as well as renationalisation of public utilities and the railways. A longstanding anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, he supports a foreign policy of military non-interventionism and unilateral nuclear disarmament, and has been a prominent activist for Palestinian solidarity throughout the Gaza–Israel conflict. Writer Ronan Bennett, who formerly worked as a research assistant to Corbyn, has described him as "a kind of vegan, pacifist idealist, one with a clear understanding of politics and history, and a commitment to the underdog". In 1997, the political scientists David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh described Corbyn's political stance as "far-left". Corbyn has described Karl Marx as a "great economist" and said he has read some of the works of Adam Smith, Marx and David Ricardo and has "looked at many, many others". However, some have argued that Corbyn is less radical than previously described: for example, the journalist George Eaton has called him "Keynesian". In 2023, The Daily Telegraph reported that most of the tax policies in Corbyn's 2019 general election manifesto had been implemented by the winning Conservative government, including a higher corporation tax, a windfall tax on oil companies, a reduction in annual tax allowances on dividend income, raising income tax on high earners, and introducing a digital services tax on online retailers. Corbyn named John Smith as the former Labour leader whom he most admired, describing him as "a decent, nice, inclusive leader". He also said he was "very close and very good friends" with Michael Foot. Media coverage Analyses of domestic media coverage of Corbyn have found it to be critical or antagonistic. In July 2016, academics from the London School of Economics published a study of 812 articles about Corbyn taken from eight national newspapers around the time of his Labour leadership election. The study found that 75 percent of the articles either distorted or failed to represent his actual views on subjects. The study's director commented that "Our analysis shows that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader". Another report by the Media Reform Coalition and Birkbeck College in July 2016, based on 10 days of coverage around the time of multiple shadow cabinet resignations, found "marked and persistent imbalance" in favour of sources critical to him; the International Business Times was the only outlet that gave him more favourable than critical coverage. In August 2016, a YouGov survey found that 97% of Corbyn supporters agreed that the "mainstream media as a whole has been deliberately biasing coverage to portray Jeremy Corbyn in a negative manner", as did 51% of the general "Labour selectorate" sample. In May 2017, Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Communication and Culture concluded that the media was attacking Corbyn far more than May during nine election campaign weekdays examined. The Daily Mail and Daily Express praised Theresa May for election pledges that were condemned when proposed by Labour in previous elections. In February 2018, Momentum reported that attacks on Corbyn in the press were associated with increases in their membership applications. In September 2019, Labour leaders argued that traditional mainstream media outlets showed bias. In December 2019, a study by Loughborough University found that British press coverage was twice as hostile to Labour and half as critical of the Conservatives during the 2019 general election campaign as it had been during the 2017 campaign. In an interview with Middle East Eye in June 2020, Corbyn described the media's treatment of himself while he was Labour leader as obsessive and "at one level laughable, but all designed to be undermining". He said that the media coverage had diverted his media team from helping him pursue "a political agenda on homelessness, on poverty in Britain, on housing, on international issues" to "rebutting these crazy stories, abusive stories, about me the whole time". He said he considered suing as a result of media treatment but was guided by advice from Tony Benn, who told him, "Libel is a rich man's game, and you're not a rich man [...] Go to a libel case – even if you win the case, you'll be destroyed financially in doing so". Personal life Corbyn lives in the Finsbury Park area of London. He has been married three times and divorced twice, and has three sons with his second wife. In 1974, he married his first wife, Jane Chapman, a fellow Labour Councillor for Haringey and now a professor at the University of Lincoln. They divorced in 1979. In the late 1970s, Corbyn had a brief relationship with Labour MP Diane Abbott. In 1987, Corbyn married Chilean exile Claudia Bracchitta, granddaughter of Ricardo Bracchitta (Consul-General of Spain in Santiago), with whom he has three sons. He missed his youngest son's birth as he was lecturing National Union of Public Employees members at the same hospital. Following a difference of opinion about sending their son to a grammar school (Corbyn opposes selective education), they divorced in 1999 after two years of separation, although Corbyn said in June 2015 that he continues to "get on very well" with her. His son subsequently attended Queen Elizabeth's School, which had been his wife's first choice. Their second son, Sebastian, worked on his leadership campaign and was later employed as John McDonnell's Chief of Staff. Corbyn's second-eldest brother, Andrew, who was a geologist, died of a brain haemorrhage while in Papua New Guinea in 2001. Corbyn escorted the body from Papua New Guinea to Australia, where his brother's widow and children lived. In 2012, Corbyn went to Mexico to marry his Mexican partner Laura Álvarez, who runs a fair trade coffee import business that has been the subject of some controversy. A former human rights lawyer in Mexico, she first met Corbyn shortly after his divorce from Bracchitta, having come to London to support her sister Marcela following the abduction of her niece to America by her sister's estranged husband. They contacted fellow Labour MP Tony Benn for assistance, who introduced them to Corbyn, who met with the police on their behalf and spoke at fundraisers until the girl was located in 2003. Álvarez then returned to Mexico, with the couple maintaining a long-distance relationship until she moved to London in 2011. Álvarez has described Corbyn as "not very good at house work but he is a good politician". They have a cat called El Gato ("The Cat" in Spanish), while Corbyn had previously owned a dog called Mango, described by The Observer in 1984 as his "only constant companion" at the time. Personal beliefs and interests When interviewed by The Huffington Post in December 2015, Corbyn refused to reveal his religious beliefs and called them a "private thing", but denied that he was an atheist. He has said that he is "sceptical" of having a god in his life. He compared his concerns about the environment to a sort of "spiritualism". Corbyn has described himself as frugal, telling Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian: "I don't spend a lot of money, I lead a very normal life, I ride a bicycle and I don't have a car." He has been a vegetarian for nearly 50 years, after having volunteered on a pig farm in Jamaica when he was 19, and stated in April 2018 that he was considering becoming a vegan. Although he has been described in the media as teetotal, he said in an interview with the Daily Mirror that he does drink alcohol but "very, very little". Corbyn is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling. He enjoys reading and writing, and speaks fluent Spanish. He supports Arsenal F.C., which is based in his constituency, and has signed parliamentary motions praising the successes of its men's and women's teams. He named Jens Lehmann, Ian Wright, and Dennis Bergkamp as his favourite Arsenal players, and has campaigned for the club to pay its staff a living wage. Corbyn is an avid "drain spotter" and has photographed decorative drain and manhole covers throughout the country. Corbyn co-edited with Len McCluskey the anthology Poetry for the Many, published in November 2023 by OR Books. Awards and recognition In 2013, Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi International Peace Award for his "consistent efforts over a 30-year parliamentary career to uphold the Gandhian values of social justice and non‐violence". In the same year, he was honoured by the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative for his "ongoing support for a number of non-government organisations and civil causes". Corbyn has won the Parliamentary "Beard of the Year Award" a record six times, as well as being named as the Beard Liberation Front's Beard of the Year, having previously described his beard as "a form of dissent" against New Labour. In 2016, Corbyn was the subject of a musical entitled Corbyn the Musical: The Motorcycle Diaries, written by journalists Rupert Myers and Bobby Friedman. In 2017 the American magazine Foreign Policy named Corbyn in its Top 100 Global Thinkers list for that year "for inspiring a new generation to re-engage in politics". In December 2017 he was one of three recipients awarded the Seán MacBride Peace Prize "for his sustained and powerful political work for disarmament and peace". The award was announced the previous September. See also Electoral history of Jeremy Corbyn List of peace activists References Further reading External links Official website Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter Campaign website for the 2024 general election Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom Contributions in Parliament at Hansard Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005 Voting record at Public Whip Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou Appearances on C-SPAN

Nicola_Sturgeon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Sturgeon

Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 2014 to 2023. She has served as a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) since 1999, first as an additional member for the Glasgow electoral region, and as the member for Glasgow Southside (formerly Glasgow Govan) from 2007. Born in Ayrshire, Sturgeon is a law graduate of the University of Glasgow. She worked as a solicitor in Glasgow before her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. She served successively as the SNP's shadow minister for education, health, and justice. Sturgeon entered the leadership of the SNP but later withdrew from the contest in favour of Alex Salmond, standing instead as depute leader on a joint ticket with Salmond. Both were subsequently elected; as Salmond was still an MP, Sturgeon led the SNP in the Scottish Parliament as Leader of the Opposition from 2004 to 2007. The SNP emerged as the largest party following the 2007 election and Salmond headed the first SNP minority government, with Sturgeon as his deputy. From 2007 to 2012, she served as health secretary, overseeing the scrapping of prescription charges and the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Following the SNP's landslide majority in 2011, she was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities, which saw her in charge of the legislative process for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The defeat of the Yes Scotland campaign resulted in Salmond's resignation as SNP leader. Sturgeon was elected unopposed as SNP leader in November 2014 and was subsequently appointed as first minister, becoming the first woman to hold either position. She entered office amid a rapid surge in membership of the SNP, which was reflected in the party's performance in the 2015 general election, winning 56 of the 59 Scottish seats and replacing the Liberal Democrats as the third-largest party in the House of Commons. The SNP continued to enjoy electoral successes throughout Sturgeon's nine years in office, but lost 21 seats in the 2017 general election. Despite losing her majority, Sturgeon secured a second term in office in 2016, forming a minority government. Sturgeon led the Scottish Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, implementing a series of restrictions on social gatherings and the rollout of the vaccine programme. A seat short of a majority in 2021, Sturgeon became the only first minister to serve a third term, and she subsequently entered a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens. The calls from Sturgeon's government and the wider independence movement for a second referendum were unsuccessful, as successive Conservative prime ministers refused to grant a Section 30 order. From 2022, Sturgeon received heavier criticism for her positions on gender reforms. On 15 February 2023, Sturgeon resigned the leadership of the SNP claiming occupational burnout; she was succeeded by her health secretary, Humza Yousaf, the following month. Early life and education Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon was born in Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine on 19 July 1970. She is the eldest of two daughters born to Joan Kerr Sturgeon (née Ferguson, born 23 October 1952), a dental nurse, and Robin Sturgeon (born 28 September 1948), an electrician. Her younger sister, Gillian Sturgeon, is an NHS worker. Her family has some roots in North East England; her paternal grandmother, Margaret Sturgeon (née Mill), was from Ryhope in what is now the City of Sunderland. Her grandmother married Robert Sturgeon, a gardener from Ayr, at St Paul's Parish Church in 1943, and they both eventually moved back to the south west of Scotland. Sturgeon grew up in Prestwick and in the village of Dreghorn, in a terraced council house, which her parents bought through the right-to-buy scheme. Sturgeon was a quiet child and has been described by her younger sister as "the sensible one" of the two. Sturgeon was shy and has said that she "much preferred to sit with my head in a book than talking to people". She developed a passion for books and reading which continued into adult life. She has described herself as being an "austere" teen whose style tended towards goth, adding that "if you see pictures of me back then, you would struggle to know whether I was a boy or a girl". Sturgeon was a fan of Wham! and Duran Duran, and enjoyed spending Saturday nights at Frosty's Ice Disco in Irvine. Sturgeon attended Dreghorn Primary School from 1975 to 1982 and Greenwood Academy from 1982 to 1988. She later studied law at the University of Glasgow School of Law, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) in 1992 and a Diploma in Legal Practice the following year. During her time at the University of Glasgow she was active as a member of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and the Glasgow University Students' Representative Council. Legal career Following her graduation, Sturgeon completed her legal traineeship at McClure Naismith, a Glasgow firm of solicitors, in 1995. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for Bell & Craig, a firm of solicitors in Stirling, and later at the Drumchapel Law Centre and a Money Advice Centre in Glasgow from 1997 until her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Early parliamentary career Early political years In her early teens, Sturgeon joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and in 1986, at the age of 16, she became a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), quickly becoming the party's Youth Affairs Vice Convener and Publicity Vice Convener. She joined the SNP following an assumption by her English teacher, who was a Labour councillor, she would be a Labour supporter. In the 1987 UK General election, Sturgeon got her first taste of campaigning, going door-to-door to get her local SNP candidate, Kay Ullrich, elected to Westminster. Despite Ullrich failing to win the seat, Sturgeon ploughed her political energy into the Young Scottish Nationalists (now Young Scots for Independence), joining its national executive when she was 17. In an interview with the BBC's Woman's Hour, Sturgeon revealed that it was Margaret Thatcher who inspired her to enter politics, because, due to rising unemployment in Scotland at the time, she developed "a strong feeling that it was wrong for Scotland to be governed by a Tory government that we hadn't elected".Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for. Sturgeon became the youngest ever parliamentary candidate in Scotland in the 1992 general election. Aged 21, Sturgeon was selected as the SNP candidate in the Glasgow Shettleston constituency. She was unsuccessful, having been beaten by almost 15,000 votes by Labour. Sturgeon also stood unsuccessfully as the SNP candidate for the Irvine North ward on Cunninghame District Council in May 1992, for the Baillieston/Mount Vernon ward on Strathclyde Regional Council in 1994, and for the Bridgeton ward on Glasgow City Council in 1995. In the mid-1990s Sturgeon and Charles Kennedy went together on a political study visit to Australia. The 1997 general election saw Sturgeon selected to fight the Glasgow Govan seat for the SNP. Boundary changes meant that the notional Labour majority in the seat had increased substantially. However, infighting between the two rival candidates for the Labour nomination, Mohammed Sarwar and Mike Watson, along with an energetic local campaign, resulted in Glasgow Govan being the only Scottish seat to see a swing away from Labour in the midst of a Labour landslide nationwide. Sarwar did, however, win the seat with a majority of 2,914 votes. Shortly after this, Sturgeon was appointed as the SNP's spokesperson for energy and education matters. SNP in opposition Sturgeon stood for election to the Scottish Parliament in the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999 as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Govan. Although she failed to win the seat, she was placed first in the SNP's regional list for the Glasgow region, and was thus elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP emerged as the second largest party and sat in opposition to the Labour-Lib Dem coalition. In Alex Salmond's shadow cabinet, she served as Shadow Minister for Children and Education from 1999 to 2000. As Shadow Education minister, Sturgeon backed Labour's efforts to repeal Section 28 – a Westminster law that banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. There was, however, significant public opposition to repeal and an unscientific postal vote on the issue – organised by SNP donor Brian Souter – suggested most Scots wanted to keep the clause. Acknowledging this, Sturgeon suggested: "That is why the SNP have urged a policy for many months that we believe can provide people with the necessary reassurance, by providing a statutory underpinning to the guidelines, and resolve this difficult debate. We believe that the value of marriage should be clearly referred to in the guidelines, without denigrating other relationships or children brought up in other kinds of relationship." The compromise had the support of Souter but an amendment to that effect was voted down by MSPs who expressed concerns it would stigmatise children from single parent and unmarried families. Sturgeon served as Shadow Minister for Health and Community Care from 2000 to 2003, and Shadow Minister for Justice from 2003 to 2004. She also served as a member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee and the Health and Community Care Committee. 2004 SNP leadership election On 22 June 2004, John Swinney resigned as Leader of the SNP following poor results in the European Parliament election. His then-depute, Roseanna Cunningham, immediately stood for the leadership. The previous leader, Alex Salmond, at the time refused to stand. On 24 June 2004, Sturgeon also entered the leadership contest, with Kenny MacAskill as her running mate. The political columnist Iain Macwhirter declared that while she "didn't inspire great warmth", she was "quick on her feet, lacks any ideological baggage and has real determination – unlike... Roseanna Cunningham". However, once Cunningham emerged as the favourite to win, Salmond entered the contest and Sturgeon subsequently withdrew from the contest and declared her support for Salmond, standing instead as his running mate for the depute leadership. It was reported that Salmond had privately supported Sturgeon in her leadership bid, but decided to run for the position himself as it became apparent she was unlikely to beat Cunningham. The majority of the SNP hierarchy lent their support to the Salmond–Sturgeon bid for the leadership, although MSP Alex Neil backed Salmond as leader, but refused to endorse Sturgeon as depute. On 3 September 2004, the leadership contest resulted in Salmond and Sturgeon elected as Leader and Depute Leader respectively. As Salmond was still an MP in the House of Commons, Sturgeon led the SNP at the Scottish Parliament until the 2007 election, when Salmond was elected as an MSP. Leader of the Opposition; 2004–2007 As leader of the SNP in the Scottish Parliament, she served as the Leader of the Opposition in Holyrood. Sturgeon became a high-profile figure in Scottish politics and often clashed with First Minister Jack McConnell at First Minister's Questions. This included rows over the House of Commons' decision to replace the Trident nuclear weapon system, and the SNP's plans to replace council tax in Scotland with a local income tax. Sturgeon quickly grew a reputation in Holyrood as opposition leader, becoming known as "nippy sweetie" – Scottish slang for the "sharp-tongued and strong-minded". Deputy First Minister of Scotland (2007–2014) In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, Sturgeon defeated Gordon Jackson QC with a 4.7% swing to the SNP in the Glasgow Govan constituency. This was one of many swings to the SNP, as the party emerged as the largest party, winning one seat more than the governing Scottish Labour Party. Although the SNP was recognised as the winners of the election, it failed to obtain a majority and Labour was not willing to allow the SNP to enter government. Sturgeon led coalition negotiation talks between the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens, but these talks failed to reach an agreement, with the Lib Dems backing out and the Greens instead supporting a 'confidence and supply' agreement. Ultimately, Salmond formed a minority government and he was appointed First Minister of Scotland. He appointed Sturgeon as Deputy First Minister and tasked her with the Cabinet position of Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing. Health Secretary (2007–2012) Sturgeon served as Health Secretary in Salmond's first, and for a year, in his second cabinet. She was supported in her role as Health Secretary by Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health and Sport, and by Alex Neil, the Minister for Housing and Communities. She launched her programme for government, the Better Health, Better Care: Action Plan, which settled a new vision for NHS Scotland. She reversed the decision to close casualty units at University Hospital Ayr and University Hospital Monklands. Sturgeon oversaw the scrapping of prescription charges In Scotland, an election pledge by the SNP originally for the chronically ill and those with cancer. Health policy Sturgeon also outlined a guaranteed maximum 18-week wait for patients after they had seen their GP and vowed to do away with deferred or "hidden" waiting lists. She ordered a review of the thorny issue of hospital car parking charges – as high as £7 in some areas – and launched an inquiry into the infection of NHS patients with Hepatitis C and HIV from tainted blood products. 2009 swine flu pandemic As Health Secretary, Sturgeon became more widely known internationally for her handling of the 2009 flu pandemic. On 26 April 2009, the Scottish Government confirmed that two people who had returned from Mexico had been admitted to Monklands Hospital in Airdrie after experiencing "mild flu-like symptoms". Sturgeon stated that there was "no immediate threat to public health in Scotland", but added, "monitoring of those who have been in close contact with the two people is also being carried out as an additional precaution." The following day, she confirmed that these were cases of the swine influenza A (H1N1) virus. Authorities in both Scotland and England stated that there were no plans to trace the fellow airline passengers who may have travelled alongside the couple, since the authorities do not classify them as "close contacts". On 11 June, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the influenza virus a pandemic. Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that containment of the virus had failed and that the Scottish Government was taking steps to mitigate the spread of the virus. "We have seen a rapid increase in the number of confirmed cases in Scotland over the past 10 days", she told Parliament. "Based on this experience, Health Protection Scotland has expressed the view that sustained community transmission appears to be taking place." Four days later, a Scottish woman with underlying health conditions died at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. This marked the first death in Scotland and Europe. Minimum pricing unit To tackle Scotland's poor relationship with alcohol, Sturgeon passed legislation to increase the price of alcohol per unit to help reduce sales, in particular, for those addicted. In June 2012, the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012 was passed after receiving support from the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens. Labour refused to support the bill as they claimed it failed to tackle windfall profit from alcohol retailers. Infrastructure Secretary (2012–2014) At the 2011 election, the SNP won a large overall majority. Sturgeon was retained as Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing until a reshuffle one year later, when she was appointed as Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities and an additional role overseeing the referendum on Scottish independence, essentially putting her in charge of the SNP's referendum campaign. In 2012 she pledged to build a high-speed railway line between Glasgow and Edinburgh by 2024, cutting journey times between the two cities to under 30 minutes. Sturgeon said the Scottish Government would "not wait" for Westminster to build a high-speed line to Scotland. However, in 2016 the plan was abandoned and the Scottish Government blamed Westminster. 2014 Scottish independence referendum Salmond put Sturgeon in charge of the Scottish Government's legislative process for a referendum on Scottish Independence and she was essentially in charge of the SNP's referendum campaign. In December 2012, Sturgeon said that she believed that independence would allow Scotland to build a stronger and more competitive country, and would change spending priorities to address "the scandal of soaring poverty in a country as rich as Scotland". While campaigning for a Yes vote in August 2013, she told The Guardian that if Scots voted for the Union: "Will there be another referendum round the corner? No. We can't bind our successors, but we've made very clear our belief that constitutional referenda are once-in-a-generation events." In November 2013, Sturgeon joined Salmond to launch Scotland's Future – the Scottish Government's prospectus for independence. Sturgeon was one of the white paper's most high-profile media champions and frequently debated its contents with opposition politicians and sceptical Scots. When the British Government turned down the Scottish Government's idea of a formal currency union – on the grounds that the rationale for sharing a currency with a foreign country was "not clear" – Sturgeon accused Westminster of trying to "bully Scotland" and said it would "cost their own businesses hundreds of millions in transaction costs". During the campaign, the European Commission said that if Scots decided to leave the United Kingdom, it would also mean leaving the European Union. Scotland would then have to reapply for EU membership and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso predicted this would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible". In July 2014 Sturgeon said this would put at risk the right of EU citizens to continue living in Scotland: "There are 160,000 EU nationals from other states living in Scotland, including some in the Commonwealth Games city of Glasgow. If Scotland was outside Europe, they would lose the right to stay here." On 19 September 2014, independence was rejected in the Scottish independence referendum, with 55.3% of the voters voting no and 44.7% voting yes. Following the defeat of the Yes Scotland campaign, Salmond resigned as First Minister and Leader of the SNP. Sturgeon immediately entered the election to replace him, and received huge support from the SNP hierarchy. Sturgeon said that there would be "no greater privilege" than to lead the SNP. On Salmond's resignation, Sturgeon said: The personal debt of gratitude I owe Alex is immeasurable. He has been my friend, mentor and colleague for more than 20 years. Quite simply, I would not have been able to do what I have in politics without his constant advice, guidance and support through all these years. [...] I can think of no greater privilege than to seek to lead the party I joined when I was just 16. However, that decision is not for today. Following the referendum defeat, Sturgeon said that "further devolution is the route to independence". She also opined that Scottish independence was a matter of "when, not if". Leadership of the Scottish National Party On 24 September 2014, Sturgeon officially launched her campaign bid to succeed Salmond as Leader of the Scottish National Party at the November leadership election. It quickly became apparent that no other candidate would be able to receive enough required nominations to run a credible leadership campaign. Upon launching her campaign, Sturgeon also resigned as Depute Leader, triggering a concurrent depute leadership election; the MSPs Angela Constance and Keith Brown and the MP Stewart Hosie all nominated themselves to succeed Sturgeon as Depute Leader. Nominations for the SNP leadership closed on 15 October, with Sturgeon confirmed as the only candidate. SNP convener Derek Mackay publicly congratulated Sturgeon as de facto leader in waiting, saying that she would be "a fantastic new leader" for both the SNP and for Scotland. On this date, Sturgeon also came out on top in a trust rating opinion poll, conducted for the SNP, which indicated that 54% of the Scottish population trusted her to "stand up for Scotland's interests". At a speech in Dundee's Caird Hall on 7 November, Sturgeon pledged to be "the most accessible First Minister ever" when she took over. She also promised to hold a monthly Facebook question and answer session with members of the public, regular town hall meetings and that the Scottish Cabinet would meet outside Edinburgh once every two months. Sturgeon was formally acclaimed as the first female Leader of the SNP on 14 November 2014 at the Autumn Conference in Perth, with Hosie as her depute. This also made her First Minister-Designate, given the SNP's absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament. In her first speech as leader, Sturgeon said that it was "the privilege of her life" to lead the party she joined as a teenager. Although Salmond officially tendered his resignation as First Minister on 18 November 2014, Sturgeon was not sworn in until two days later. From 18 November until her official appointment on 20 November, she served as the acting First Minister, essentially the First Minister-elect. First Minister of Scotland (2014–2023) First term (2014–2016) On 20 November 2014, Sturgeon was sworn into office at the Court of Session in a ceremony presided by Lord Gill, after receiving the royal warrant of appointment by Queen Elizabeth II. She became the first woman to hold office. During her first First Minister's Questions after being sworn in, Sturgeon tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying that she came into her new post "with an open mind and a willingness to hear proposals from all sides of the chamber." First cabinet Sturgeon began making appointments to her first cabinet on 21 November 2014, beginning with the appointment of finance secretary John Swinney to become her Deputy First Minister. Shona Robison, a close ally to Sturgeon, became the health secretary, while Keith Brown and Angela Constance, who were both unsuccessful in their bids for the deputy leadership of the SNP, were appointed infrastructure secretary and education secretary, respectively. Michael Matheson was promoted as justice secretary. The departure of Kenny MacAskill and Michael Russell signalled a generational shift away from the "79 group". Alex Neil, who many speculated would be dismissed, remained in cabinet but in a "less prominent portfolio" of social justice, communities and pensioners' rights. Roseanna Cunningham, who had difficult relationship with Sturgeon, was surprisingly promoted to cabinet as the fair work secretary. Fiona Hyslop and Richard Lochhead remained in their portfolios of culture secretary and rural affairs secretary, respectively. Sturgeon's cabinet was 50/50 gender balance, with five men and five women, including herself. 2015 Westminster landslide Sturgeon led the Scottish National Party through a landslide victory in the 2015 UK general election, winning 56 out of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster, the party's best ever performance. The party received 50% of the vote share in Scotland and replaced the Liberal Democrats as the third largest party in the British House of Commons. Sturgeon had stated that the party's success in the election was not a mandate for another independence referendum, but primarily for a stronger voice for Scotland in London. In the run-up to the elections, Sturgeon took part in several Scottish and UK-wide TV election debates and according to opinion polls was regarded to have had a successful performance. As part of the election campaign, Sturgeon indicated that the SNP would hold another independence referendum if it won the upcoming 2016 Scottish Parliament election. 2016 Scottish Parliament election Sturgeon launched, in what she claimed, as the most "bold, ambitious and reforming" SNP manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. She set out the party's plans to increase income tax by freezing tax thresholds, reversing her previous policy of cutting taxes for higher earners. The manifesto also included a commitment to increase NHS funding by £500 million, "baby boxes" full of essentials to newborn parents, and an ambitious new target to cut emissions by 50% by 2020 as of the party's effort to tackle climate change. Sturgeon also hinted if re-elected she would hold a second referendum on Scottish independence. Despite losing her majority, Sturgeon claimed a "historic victory" after the SNP won a third consecutive term in government and sought a second term in office as a minority government. Second term (2016–2021) 2016 EU membership referendum In 2016, the European Union membership referendum to decide the future of the UK's European Union membership resulted in 52% of voters in the UK voting for Brexit (leaving the EU), with 48% voting to remain; all council areas in Scotland voted by a majority for the UK to remain a member of the EU. Across Scotland, 62% of voters backed the UK remaining a member of the EU, with 38% voting for the UK to leave. In response to the result, on 24 June 2016, Sturgeon said that Scottish Government officials would begin planning for a second independence referendum. Sturgeon claimed that it was "clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part of the European Union" and that Scotland had "spoken decisively" with a "strong, unequivocal" vote to remain in the European Union. Sturgeon said it was "democratically unacceptable" that Scotland could be taken out of the EU "against its will". An emergency Scottish cabinet meeting on 25 June agreed that the Scottish Government would seek to enter negotiations with the EU and its member states, to explore options to protect Scotland's place in the EU. Sturgeon later said that while she believed in Scottish independence, her starting point in these discussions was to protect Scotland's relationship with the EU. Future referendum on independence Sturgeon confirmed in June 2016 that the Scottish government had formally agreed to draft legislation to allow a second independence referendum to take place. As the constitution is a reserved matter under the Scotland Act 1998, for a future referendum on Scottish independence to be legal under UK law, it would need to receive the consent of the British Parliament to take place. Prior to the day the Prime Minister triggered Article 50, formally allowing the process of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, the Scottish Parliament voted 69 to 59 in favour of another independence referendum. By the end of that week, on 30 March 2017, Sturgeon wrote to the Prime Minister requesting a Section 30 order, formally devolving the responsibility and power to the Scottish Government to plan for and hold another referendum on Scottish independence. Previously, May and David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland, had both highlighted that as the negotiations began with the European Union on the United Kingdom's withdraw, it was important for Scotland to work with the UK Government to get the best exit deal for both the United Kingdom and Scotland, stating that "now is not the time for another referendum". Following the 2017 UK general election, Sturgeon's government postponed legislation pertaining to the proposed second referendum on Scottish independence until at least autumn 2018. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, all plans for another referendum were put on hold. 2017 UK general election Sturgeon kicked off her election campaign pledging that a strong result for the SNP would "reinforce" her mandate for a second independence referendum. However, the SNP lost 21 seats in the 2017 United Kingdom general election in Scotland and the party's vote dropped by 13%, although they remained the biggest party in Scotland. Sturgeon admitted that these results were "bitterly disappointing" and acknowledged that her party's plans for a second referendum were 'undoubtedly' a factor in the election results. It was the best result for the Scottish Conservatives since Margaret Thatcher and the party's campaign slogan, "We said No to independence. We meant it", resonated in areas that had voted strongly for the Union in 2014. Observers also concluded that opposition to the EU's Common Fisheries Policy in coastal communities was a factor behind large swings to the Tories in North East seats previously held by nationalists for decades. Several weeks later Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that she would "reset" and delay her plans for a second independence referendum; the SNP losses in that month's election had led her to conclude that many Scots "just want a break from making big political decisions". Alex Salmond sexual harassment case In January 2019, Sturgeon referred herself to an independent ministerial ethics body, which led to an investigation into her actions with respect to a sexual harassment case concerning allegations against Salmond. This followed her admitting that she had had a secret meeting and subsequent phone call with Salmond about the Scottish government's allegations against him. She raised these with the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government, Leslie Evans, two months later, rather than reporting them immediately, as she should have done if they constitute government matters (as per the ministerial code). Sturgeon argued that the meetings were SNP party matters, and thus not covered. The investigating panel consisted of Dame Elish Angiolini, a former Solicitor General for Scotland and lord advocate, and James Hamilton, a former director of public prosecutions in the Republic of Ireland. On 15 January 2019, the Scottish Parliament agreed to hold its own inquiry into the matter, the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints, to investigate how the Government breached its own guidelines in its original investigation into the harassment claims against Salmond, and then lost a judicial review into their actions and had to pay over £500,000 to Salmond for legal expenses. Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell, was called to this inquiry to give evidence on 8 December 2020. Opposition parties criticised Sturgeon on disparity and contradictions between the narratives of Murrell and herself. On 4 March 2021, Sturgeon answered questions over a period of eight hours from members of the committee. Two of the civil servants who made complaints about Salmond later said they felt they had been "dropped" by the Scottish Government after it lost the judicial review against him, adding they feared their experiences would make it less likely people would make complaints in the future. Labour MP Jess Phillips, a former employee of Women's Aid, accused Sturgeon of being "unprofessional with those women's lives" and said there had been a "litany of failures in professionalism and decency." 2019 UK general election Sturgeon led her party to a landslide victory in the 2019 United Kingdom general election in Scotland. The SNP won 48 seats, and came second place in the 11 others; their 45% of the vote yielded 80% of the seats in Scotland. Among the election casualties was Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson, who lost her seat in East Dunbartonshire. Sturgeon was branded as "ungracious" when she was filmed by Sky News celebrating Swinson's defeat. Sturgeon apologised for being overexcited although expressed that she was celebrating Amy Callaghan's win. In the wake of the results, Sturgeon said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had "no right" to stand in the way of another Scottish independence referendum after an "overwhelming" SNP election victory. She also said that the result "renews, reinforces and strengthens" the mandate for Indyref2. COVID-19 pandemic The worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 began during Sturgeon's second term as First Minister. The first case of the virus in Scotland was confirmed on 1 March 2020, when a resident in Tayside had tested positive. Initially, the Scottish Government resisted banning public events and on 12 March allowed 47,000 fans to attend a Rangers match at Ibrox, insisting that, "stopping mass gatherings [is] not the best way to contain this virus." However, Sturgeon's government ordered all schools and nurseries in Scotland closed on 20 March to try to limit the spread of the virus. On 23 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Sturgeon ordered Scotland into "lockdown", limiting the reasons why people may leave their homes in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus, to protect the health of the population, and to ease the pressure the virus placed on NHS Scotland services and workforce. Subsequently the restrictions were repeatedly tightened, loosened and adapted in parts or all of Scotland in response to developments in the situation. During the early stages of the pandemic, 1,300 elderly hospital patients were transferred into care homes without receiving a negative coronavirus test result. Many had been infected with the virus and ended up passing it on to other care home residents. Over three thousand care home residents died from COVID-19 and Gary Smith, Scotland Secretary of the GMB, said the policy had turned "care homes into morgues". When asked by the BBC if the policy had been a mistake, Sturgeon said: "Looking back on that now, with the knowledge we have now and with the benefit of hindsight, yes." In April 2020 whistle-blowers in the NHS came forward to reveal that staff were being made to reuse dirty personal protective equipment (PPE) while at work. One nurse told STV, "[When we hear the government say supplies are fine] it's not frustrating, it's crushing. It is absolutely crushing. We feel we are being lied to." Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament in July, "At no point within this crisis has Scotland run out of any aspect of PPE. We have worked hard to make sure that supplies are there, we've worked hard overcoming challenges that we have faced along the way." In July 2020, Sturgeon advocated that the leaders of the four UK nations adopt a coordinated Zero-COVID strategy. In February 2021, Audit Scotland published a report that concluded the Scottish government had not prepared adequately for a pandemic. While it commended the authorities for preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed during the crisis, the watchdog also noted that recommendations from pandemic planning exercises in 2015, 2016 and 2018 had not been fully implemented. One particular problem it highlighted was that not enough had been done to ensure Scottish hospitals and care homes had enough personal protective equipment. Overall, it concluded that ministers "could have been better prepared to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic". Sturgeon said there were "lots of lessons to learn". In March 2021, the Court of Session declared that the Scottish government's prohibition on communal worship, imposed during the pandemic, was unlawful. This followed an open letter two months earlier, written by 200 church leaders to Sturgeon, warning her that the prohibition could be unlawful. In April 2021, Scotland's death toll from COVID-19 passed 10,000. At a session of First Minister's Questions in June 2021, Sturgeon was asked about mistakes made early on in the pandemic, and she replied: "If I could turn the clock back, would we go into lockdown earlier than we did? Yes, I think that is true." In April 2022, Sturgeon demanded that Prime Minister Boris Johnson resign after police fined him for breaking lockdown rules in 2020. "The basic values of integrity and decency – essential to the proper working of any parliamentary democracy – demand that he go", she tweeted. The following week, Sturgeon received an official reprimand from Police Scotland after a video emerged of her campaigning in a barber shop without a mask. Sturgeon – who had previously apologised to the Scottish Parliament after she was caught breaking the same law in December 2020 – apologised once more and said the police had been "absolutely right to treat me no differently to any other citizen." Third term (2021–23) Sturgeon led the SNP into the 2021 Scottish Parliament election on a manifesto promise to hold a second independence referendum after the COVID-19 pandemic was over. In the election, the SNP won 64 of the 129 seats contested. The SNP won a fourth consecutive election, albeit short of an overall majority, with a record number of votes on both the constituency and regional vote as well as increasing their share of the constituency vote and making a net gain of one seat. Sturgeon was nominated for the post of First Minister by a vote of the Scottish Parliament on 18 May, defeating Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie by 64 votes to 31 and 4 respectively. This win resulted in Sturgeon becoming the first First Minister in the history of the Scottish Parliament to form a third government. Shortly after being elected, Sturgeon appointed John Swinney to the newly created position of Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. Power-sharing agreement In August 2021, Sturgeon and Scottish Green Party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater reached a power-sharing agreement between their parties. There was no agreement on oil and gas exploration, but the government now argued that it had a stronger case for a national independence referendum. As part of the agreement, the Green Party co-leaders would be nominated to serve as ministers. Climate crisis In August 2021, confronted by climate activist Lauren Macdonald about the Cambo oil field west of Shetland, Sturgeon refused to take a position on whether its development should go ahead. A video of the interaction went viral and a few days later, Sturgeon wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, asking that the development of Cambo should be "reassessed in light of the severity of the climate emergency". The letter represented a significant shift in policy for the SNP, which had historically been a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry; the party's blueprint for an independent Scotland in 2013 was predicated on tax revenue earned from domestic oil production, while Sturgeon had predicted in the run-up to the referendum that, "We're on the verge of another North Sea bonanza". This shift in position was welcomed by the Scottish Green party but Greenpeace criticised Sturgeon for not coming out more strongly against the oil field. "The First Minister must stop hiding behind Boris Johnson", a spokesperson for the organisation said. "If she wants to show leadership on climate she must clearly say: stop Cambo." In November 2021, although no assessment had taken place, Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament she believed the oilfield "should not get the green light". Caledonian MacBrayne ferry delay In the late 2010s, Scottish islanders began to complain that the ageing ferry fleet that connected them to the mainland had become increasingly unreliable. During the winter of 2022 only one in three sailings to the island of Coll went ahead; Hebridean shopkeepers kept receiving deliveries of rotten food; while other islanders said they had missed doctors' appointments, funerals and even the chance to say goodbye to dying loved ones because of cancelled sailings. The Scottish Government had commissioned two new ferries for £97m from Ferguson's shipyard in 2015, but the construction of the two vessels was beset by delays and complications. In 2022 Audit Scotland concluded that the final price tag for the vessels would be somewhere between £250m and £400m once the ships were finished in 2023. Furthermore, they concluded that the Scottish Government had awarded the contracts without normal financial safeguards and presided over a "multitude of failings". Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament of her "deep regret" that islanders were enduring such chaos, and said that the government was "learning lessons from this experience". Key documentation, which might have explained why ministers signed the contracts without appropriate safeguards to protect taxpayers' money, was lost and Sturgeon later said this too was "regrettable" and that "the government will learn lessons." Second independence referendum proposals In June 2022, Sturgeon officially unveiled plans for Scottish independence once again. She argued that her government had an "indisputable mandate" for a second Scottish independence referendum. She argued that independence would allow Scotland to set out "a different and better vision" and claimed that there is a legally secure path to get a referendum without permission from the cabinet. This plan has been met with condemnation from various opposing parties, with the Prime Minister rejecting her plan. Sturgeon scheduled the referendum for 19 October 2023. She sought the Prime Minister to consent to the vote by signing a section 30 order, a move that Downing Street has refused to comply. She asked Scotland's Lord Advocate to consider referring the matter to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to rule if the Scottish Government has the power to host a referendum without the Government of the United Kingdom's approval, this request has since been granted. In October 2022, Sturgeon launched her government's third independence paper, which outlines the currency in an independent Scotland and joining the EU. She proposed the Scottish Government would use the pound sterling for a brief period before transitioning to a new currency known as the 'Scottish Pound'. She argued independence would be "essential" for economic prosperity for Scotland as she claimed the economic climate throughout the UK does not offer strength, stability or security. On the day the Supreme Court ruled the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to legislate a referendum on independence, Sturgeon declared the next democratic election in Scotland - in this case a UK general election expected to be held in 2024 - would be campaigned by the SNP as a de facto referendum. Unionist parties have rejected this characterisation. Some SNP members urged Sturgeon to call an early election at Holyrood to speed up the process for a de facto referendum. Gender recognition reforms As part of the SNP's 2016 manifesto policy, the SNP pledged to voters that it would review and reform the way that trans people change their legal gender. However, the policy divided the party and the bill was delayed during Sturgeon's second term in office because of opposition to the policy and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2021 SNP manifesto, Sturgeon committed the party once again to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 of the UK Parliament and in August that year included the commitment in her agreement with the Scottish Greens on power-sharing. In September 2021, Sturgeon was accused of shutting down debate about gender reforms after she described concerns about gender recognition reform as "not valid" and campaign groups and analysts complained that their concerns were being ignored. On 22 December 2022, the Scottish Parliament voted 86 to 39 to pass the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill which was introduced by Sturgeon's government. On 17 January 2023, the UK Government decided to invoke, for the first time, section 35 of the Scottish Act 1998, to make an order which prevented the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from gaining Royal Assent. She opposed the decision made and criticised Scottish Secretary Alister Jack for blocking the bill and said that the decision was an attack on the Scottish Parliament and Scottish democracy as a whole and said that the matter would be brought to the courts. In 2023, Sturgeon was criticised in connection with the case of Isla Bryson, a transgender woman who had raped two women prior to her transition. On this basis, Bryson was initially sent to a women's prison but was later moved to a men's prison. Sturgeon refused to say if she regards Bryson as a man or woman, though she used female pronouns when talking about Bryson. Resignation On 15 February 2023, Sturgeon resigned as first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, pending a leadership election. At a press conference in Bute House, Sturgeon insisted that her resignation was not due to "short term pressures" and stated that the job "takes its toll on you". Sturgeon stated that she believed that her successor would lead Scotland to independence and that she would look on with pride whoever takes on the role. While appearing on a podcast for BBC Scotland, Sturgeon would later say that internet speculation about her life was a part of the reason she decided to stand down from her position as first minister, specifically referring to rumours regarding her sexuality, love life and property portfolio as being wildly inaccurate. Domestic issues Drugs deaths crisis In 2016, the Scottish Government cut direct funding to drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes from £69.2 million to £53.8 million – a drop of 22%. At the time, Scottish Drugs Forum Chief Executive David Liddell said he was concerned that the cuts had "the potential to increase harm and drug-related deaths." That year 867 Scots lost their lives to drugs – an increase of 23% on the previous year's figure – and the SNP insisted it was part of a trend seen across much of Europe. In December 2020, figures were released revealing that 1,264 people in Scotland had died from drug overdoses in 2019 – the highest number in Europe per head and more than double the number in 2014. Sturgeon sacked her Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick, and in April 2021 said of the crisis: "I think we took our eye off the ball." The crisis has particularly impacted the homeless in Scotland: 216 homeless people died in Scotland in 2019 – an increase of 11% on the previous year; over half (54%) of these deaths were drug-related. Per head, Scotland's death rate among the homeless is the highest in Britain. In August 2021, the Scottish Government announced there had been 1,339 drug deaths in the previous year – a new record high. Sturgeon tweeted that the figures were "unacceptable, each one a human tragedy", while the Scottish Liberal Democrats said: "It was Nicola Sturgeon's choice to ignore this unfolding epidemic. Issuing apologies now is too late for thousands of people. The victims of drugs and their families were failed. It is a scar on the conscience of this Scottish Government." In July 2022, the figures for 2021 were released, revealing that 1,330 had died – nine fewer than in 2020. Annemarie Ward, chief executive at the FAVOR Scotland charity, said: "Nicola Sturgeon said she would make it her national mission to save lives – but we're still losing more than 1000 people a year. The national mission is failing." Education performance In 2015, Sturgeon said that she planned to make education her "defining priority" while in office. In particular, she said she hoped to focus on closing the attainment gap between the richest and poorest children in Scottish schools, telling journalists: "Let me be clear – I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters." In 2021, Audit Scotland concluded: "Progress on closing the poverty-related attainment gap between the most and least deprived school pupils has been limited" and fell short of the Government's aims. In some local authorities, the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students had widened. International relations While foreign policy remains a reserved matter, Sturgeon has undertaken a number of visits to Europe, North America and Asia to promote Scotland as a place of investment and Scottish businesses to trade and do business with. Sturgeon has committed to strengthening links between Scotland and Africa. European Union In response to the Brexit vote, to discuss Scotland's interests, Sturgeon travelled to Brussels to meet with both Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission as well as Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament. In response to the UK-wide vote for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, the Scottish Government, headed by Sturgeon, launched the Scotland's Place in Europe document, a white paper setting out the Scottish government's aims and wishes of Scotland's role in Europe post-Brexit. The paper was sent to the central British Government to be read by Prime Minister Theresa May. In June 2017, Sturgeon criticised the approaches taken by both Theresa May and the British Government towards the Brexit approach, claiming that May "will struggle" as she is a "difficult person to build a rapport with". In the same interview, Sturgeon committed to no independence referendum being held prior to the terms of a UK wide Brexit deal being agreed and presented. With a view towards Brexit, Sturgeon demanded greater powers for the Scottish Parliament, arguing that Brexit is threatening Scotland's devolution settlement. With London seeking to restrict immigration to the United Kingdom, she asserted that Scotland should be able to set its own immigration policy, as well as policies relating to employment and trade. United States Sturgeon was highly critical of Donald Trump and his policies during the 2016 United States presidential election and had publicly backed his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Sturgeon highlighted her disapproval of his language and views relating to sexism and misogyny, and stated upon Trump's victory that she hopes "Trump turns out to be a president different to the one he was during his campaign and reaches out to those who felt vilified by his campaign". Sturgeon had previously stripped Trump of his ambassadorial role for Scottish businesses with the Scottish government in the aftermath of Trump's views of an outright ban of Muslims from entering the United States. Sturgeon claimed following comments made by Trump in relation to Muslims entering the United States that he was "not fit" for the ambassadorial role with the Scottish government. In May 2022, Sturgeon made a trip to the United States and met with controversial Republican member of Congress Robert Aderholt, a prominent anti-abortion supporter. Spain In the run up to the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, Nicola Sturgeon offered her own personal backing and that of the Scottish Government to Catalonia in the holding of a referendum. The Government of Spain criticised Sturgeon, claiming she had "totally misunderstood" the situation in Spain and Catalonia. Sturgeon highlighted that Spain should follow "the shining example" that was created as part of the Edinburgh Agreement between the Scottish and British governments that allowed Scotland to hold a legally binding referendum. Political positions Constitutional affairs Scottish independence An advocate for Scottish independence, Sturgeon has campaigned for independence from the United Kingdom since her late teens. She was categorised in 2015 as part of the SNP's gradualist wing, which believed in achieving independence through accumulating the Scottish Parliament's powers from the UK Parliament over time. In recent years, following the defeat of the Yes Scotland campaign in 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, Sturgeon has aligned herself with the new gradualist wing, who believe in only holding a second referendum if there is clear public support, such as polling being over 60%, or if there is a material change in circumstances. Monarch Sturgeon is a constitutional monarchist, telling journalists that it is "a model that has many merits". On the day Queen Elizabeth II became Britain's longest reigning monarch, Sturgeon travelled with her to open the Borders Railway and told a crowd of well-wishers: "She [The Queen] has carried out her duties with dedication, wisdom and an exemplary sense of public service. The reception she has received today, demonstrates that that admiration and affection is certainly felt here in Scotland." Following the death of the Queen Elizabeth II, Sturgeon led tributes to the Queen. She described the Queen as the "greatest constant in our national life" and added her death was "a day for reflection and remembrance" and "a day for giving thanks to The Queen for her devotion to duty and the decades of public service she gave to the people of Scotland." Economic policy She has at times been a critic of austerity, saying that the UK government's "austerity economics" is "morally unjustifiable and economically unsustainable". However, in 2018, she endorsed her party's Growth Commission report that pledged to reduce an independent Scotland's budget deficit as a percentage of GDP – something the Institute for Fiscal Studies concluded meant "continued austerity". Social issues Women's rights Sturgeon has also campaigned on women's rights and gender equality, and is a self-described feminist; she has argued that Scotland's feminist movement is not simply symbolic, but "sends a powerful signal about equality". She has hailed Scottish feminist economist Ailsa McKay as one of her inspirations. She has at various points commented on the behaviour or attitudes of men towards women; publicly condemning Donald Trump, Tony Abbott and former Labour MSP Neil Findlay. However, she defended her party's leader Alex Salmond from accusations of sexism. After Salmond had told Conservative MP Anna Soubry, "Behave yourself, woman" in 2015, Sturgeon said: "The fundamental question, 'does that language indicate that Alex Salmond is sexist?' Absolutely not, there's no man I know who is less sexist." Commenting on the need for men to challenge their friends' misogynistic behaviour, Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament in 2021: "I would say to all men in this chamber and all men across the country — challenge it [misogyny] if it's on the part of other men you may know, challenge your own behaviour and then let's collectively, as a society, turn the page and turn the corner so that women can live free of the fear of harassment, abuse, intimidation, violence and, in the worst cases, death." Transgender rights Ahead of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, Sturgeon pledged to review and reform the way that trans people change their legal gender. However, proposed changes to Scotland's Gender Recognition Act that would have allowed people to change their identity through self-identification, rather than a medical process, were paused in June 2019. Critics of the changes within the SNP had accused Sturgeon of being "out of step" on the issue, and expressed concerns that the reforms would be open to abuse and allow predatory men into women's spaces. The Scottish Government said it had paused the legislation in order to find "maximum consensus" on the issue and commentators described the issue as having divided the SNP like no other, with many dubbing the debate a "civil war". In April 2020, the reforms were again delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021, a former trans officer in the SNP's LGBT wing, Teddy Hope, quit the party, claiming it was one of the "core hubs of transphobia in Scotland". Large numbers of LGBT activists followed suit and Sturgeon released a video message in which she said that transphobia is "not acceptable" and said she hoped they would re-join the party. In the 2021 SNP manifesto, Sturgeon committed the party once again to reform the Gender Recognition Act and in August that year included the commitment in her agreement with the Scottish Greens on power-sharing. In September 2021, Sturgeon was accused of shutting down debate about gender reforms after she described concerns about gender recognition reform as "not valid" and campaign groups and analysts complained that their concerns were being ignored. On 22 December 2022, the Scottish Parliament voted 86 to 39 to pass the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill which was introduced by Sturgeon's government, but the bill was vetoed by the UK government. In 2023, Sturgeon was criticised in connection with the Isla Bryson case, in which a transgender woman who had raped two women when named Adam Graham began self-identifying as a woman after being charged. Bryson was sent to a women's prison before being moved to a men's prison. Sturgeon refused to say if she regards Bryson as a man or woman, though she used female pronouns when talking about Bryson. Nuclear weapons Sturgeon has campaigned against replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. Views on Conservative government policies At the SNP's 2022 annual party conference in Aberdeen, Sturgeon stated: "I detest the Tories and everything they stand for" in an interview on the BBC. She was accused of using "dangerous language" and when asked if she regretted the comments, Sturgeon simply replied "no" and emphasised the point she detested Tory policies and not supporters or voters. Sturgeon has been highly critical towards the leadership of Boris Johnson's government. Following Johnson's appointment as British prime minister, she claimed he "rambled" in his first speech outside 10 Downing Street and suggested he was "blame shifting". In July 2019, the prime minister met Sturgeon at her official residence, Bute House, where Johnson was "booed and heckled" by protesters. This was the only occasion when he made a formal visit to Edinburgh, as he declined future invites by the first minister. Sturgeon claimed Johnson's "fragile male ego" stopped him from meeting her. Sturgeon's attempts to request approval for a second referendum on Scottish independence were declined by the Johnson administration. Speaking after Johnson had resigned in 2022, Sturgeon said that he was the only prime minister she had worked with who was "a disgrace to the office". Post premiership (2023–present) Upon her resignation as First Minister, Sturgeon returned to the backbench, where she continues to serve as the MSP for Glasgow Southside. On 7 September 2023, she made her first speech in parliament since her arrest. SNP finance fraud inquiry and arrest In the latter half of Sturgeon's leadership of the SNP, a Police Scotland fraud inquiry was launched to investigate the spending of money that was raised specifically for independence campaigning. She dismissed claims the investigation was a result of her resignation as party leader and first minister. On 5 April 2023, Sturgeon's husband and the party's former chief executive, Peter Murrell, was arrested at their Glasgow residence and their home was searched amid the ongoing investigation. The SNP's HQ in Edinburgh and several other addresses related to party officials were also searched by police. Murrell was later released without charge and Sturgeon pulled out of a UN climate event. On 16 April, a meeting of the party's ruling body in March 2021 was leaked by a member to the Daily Mail, which showed Sturgeon warning members to be "very careful" about suggesting claims there were financial problems within the SNP. The following day, it was revealed Sturgeon would work remotely from parliament as a spokesperson stated: "in order to ensure the focus of this week is on the new First Minister setting out his priorities for the people of Scotland, Ms Sturgeon has always intended to participate remotely and intends to return to Holyrood in the near future.". In that same week, the SNP's treasurer, Colin Beatie, was arrested and later released without charge. Beatie subsequently resigned from the role. Sturgeon's successor, Humza Yousaf, has had calls by opposition for her party membership to be suspended, however, he has rejected these calls. Widespread speculation that Sturgeon could be arrested for police questioning amid the ongoing inquiry came to fruition when, on 11 June 2023, Sturgeon was arrested by Police Scotland over the investigation into the finances of her SNP party, which reportedly diverted £600,000 meant for the Scottish Independence campaign elsewhere. She was released without charge pending further investigation later that day. On 23 May 2024 Police Scotland handed a prosecution report in relation to Peter Murrell to the Crown Office who confirmed that a "53 year-old woman" also remained under investigation. COVID-19 inquiry Sturgeon is facing a potential criminal enquiry in 2024 after it was disclosed that all her WhatsApp messages during the pandemic had been deleted despite being instructed by the government to retain all information in 2021 and again in 2022 and having agreed to provide them in 2021 to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. Public image and legacy At the beginning of Sturgeon's political career, she was often regarded as a "nippy sweetie", Scottish slang for the "sharp-tongued and strong-minded". The term was used to describe Sturgeon's "fierce" attitude. Conversely, newspapers ideologically opposed to the SNP, such as the Daily Express, The Scottish Sun, and The Spectator have repeatedly and derogatorily compared Sturgeon to "Wee Jimmy Krankie", a character from Scottish comedy duo The Krankies. Sturgeon was elected leader of the SNP at a time in which the party enjoyed a surge in membership. In 2015, Sturgeon was described in a Daily Mail headline as the "most dangerous woman in Britain". It followed her party's unprecedented gains in the 2015 general election, which questioned the future of the union. Sturgeon and her party experienced a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, in part due to her willingness to communicate with the public and the Press through regular, televised briefings, and her willingness to take responsibility for her government's mistakes. This contrasted to then-PM Boris Johnson's approach, who was "less proactive and more evasive when it came to dealing with the press". The circumstances of Sturgeon's resignation in 2023, as well as her appearances at the 2024 UK COVID-19 Inquiry left a question mark over her political legacy. A wide range of media outlets were quick to condemn her reputation, including Politico Europe, The Times, BBC News, The Spectator, The Week and the I. Nonetheless, public polling shows that Sturgeon remains a popular figure in Scottish and wider UK politics, with 46% of Scots having a favourable opinion of her in 2023 YouGov polling and 50% seeing her as having "been a good leader for Scotland". On leaving office, she was the most popular party leader in the UK according to Ipsos polling. Her popular reputation suffered following her appearance at the 2024 COVID-19 inquiry and revelations she had deleted Whatsapp messages; however, polling has differed and there is still evidence of high trust towards her, usually along partisan lines. There is evidence that Nicola Sturgeon's popularity had an effect on the 2023 SNP leadership race which saw Humza Yousaf elected as leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland. Yousaf was widely regarded as Sturgeon's "continuity candidate", having previously worked as Sturgeon's Cabinet Secretary for Justice (2018–2021) and for Health (2021–2023). Hence, SNP members with a favourable view of Sturgeon were more likely to elect Yousaf, whereas those more critical of the outgoing FM were more likely to vote for his opponents, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan. Sturgeon plans to publish a memoir with Pan MacMillan in 2025. Awards and acknowledgements Sturgeon won the Scottish Politician of the Year Award in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2019. Forbes magazine ranked Sturgeon as the 50th most powerful woman in the world in 2016 and 2nd in the United Kingdom. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2014. In 2015, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour assessed Sturgeon to be the most powerful and influential woman in the United Kingdom. Personal life Sturgeon lives in Broomhouse, Glasgow with her husband, Peter Murrell, who is the former chief executive officer of the SNP. The couple have been in a relationship since 2003. They got engaged on 29 January 2010, and were married on 16 July 2010 at Òran Mór in Glasgow. Sturgeon is known for her love of fiction and says reading, "gives me a lot of joy and helps with the stresses and strains of work". Her mother Joan was the SNP Provost of North Ayrshire council, where she was councillor for the Irvine East ward from 2007 until 2016. In 2016, Sturgeon disclosed that she had miscarried five years previously. In May 2022, Sturgeon tested positive for COVID-19. In line with Government guidance, she completed a self-isolation period. See also List of First Ministers of Scotland Notes References External links Scottish Parliament profiles of MSPs: Nicola Sturgeon SNP profile Archived 15 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Jo_Swinson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Swinson

Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from July to December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well as the shortest-serving holder of the post. Swinson was the first leader of the Liberal Democrats to be defeated in their own constituency. Swinson was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Dunbartonshire from 2005 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019. In September 2020, Swinson became Director of Partners for a New Economy (P4NE). Swinson studied at the London School of Economics, and briefly worked in public relations, before being elected to the House of Commons, becoming the youngest MP at the time. She was a Liberal Democrat Spokesperson covering various portfolios, including Scotland, Women and Equalities, Communities and Local Government, and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In 2010, after the Liberal Democrats entered into a coalition government with the Conservative Party, Swinson was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and was later appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs. She lost her seat in the 2015 election, but regained it in the snap election held two years later. Shortly after returning to Parliament, she was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. In July 2019, following the retirement of Vince Cable, Swinson defeated Ed Davey in a leadership election to become Leader of the Liberal Democrats. Swinson led her party through the 2019 general election, suggesting she could lead a Liberal Democrat majority government which would revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit. Instead, Swinson and the Liberal Democrats sustained a net loss in seats, including her own to the Scottish National Party and was disqualified from continuing as party leader. At less than five months, her tenure as leader was the shortest in the Liberal Democrats' history. She is also the only incumbent Liberal Democrat leader to have lost a Parliamentary seat. Early life and education Swinson was born in Glasgow on 5 February 1980, the daughter of Peter and Annette Swinson. She was educated at Douglas Academy, a mixed state school in the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire in western Scotland, followed by the London School of Economics, where she studied Management, gaining a first-class Bachelor of Science degree in 2000. She signed up as an active member of the Liberal Democrats at the age of 17. Early career After graduating from the London School of Economics, Swinson moved to Yorkshire and worked for Ace Visual and Sound Systems in Thorne, before becoming a marketing and public relations manager for Hull-based commercial radio station Viking FM from December 2000, and media company Space and People. At the age of 21, Swinson stood unsuccessfully in the Kingston upon Hull East constituency in the 2001 general election, but gained a 6% swing from John Prescott, then the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In 2003, she unsuccessfully contested Strathkelvin and Bearsden seat in the Scottish Parliament election, finishing third with 14% of the vote. Member of Parliament (2005–2015) Swinson was elected to the House of Commons as the MP for East Dunbartonshire at the 2005 general election. She defeated John Lyons of Labour by 4,061 votes, and was the first ever Member of Parliament born in the 1980s. As the youngest MP she replaced fellow Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather as the "Baby of the House". This lasted until 2009, when Conservative MP Chloe Smith was elected at the Norwich North by-election. Swinson was vocal in her opposition to the Iraq War and the Labour government's proposals for national identity cards. She has supported measures both by individuals and government to tackle climate change such as conserving energy in the home and the Liberal Democrat policy of introducing green taxes while reducing income tax to offset the burden. She supports reducing the voting age to 16 as one way of engaging young people in politics. She believes more women should be involved in politics but that encouragement is better than affirmative action in achieving this. She opposes positive discrimination to address gender imbalance, and led the argument against positive discrimination to select her party's candidates at their national party conference in 2002, wearing a pink T-shirt inscribed with the slogan, "I am not a token woman". Swinson has also called for a "wellbeing index" to be introduced, to be compared against GDP, and tabled an early day motion on the issue in 2008, gaining 50 signatures. She found support from MPs such as Vince Cable and Angela Eagle. Swinson cited the fact that although standard of living had increased, people's level of wellbeing had been virtually static for some time, according to polls. Swinson believed that new prisons ought not to be built and had campaigned vocally, but without success, against the rebuilding of a prison at Bishopbriggs within the constituency. She had said that if a prison was built it must not be built cheaply, and that it must not be named after the town in which is to be sited. The campaign to give the prison its original name was ultimately successful, as the replacement prison will retain its original name, Lowmoss Prison. She is an active campaigner against excessive packaging of chocolate Easter eggs. Each year from 2007 saw Swinson attack confectionery manufacturers for wasteful use of non-recyclable materials in packaging of the seasonal goods. She has named Guylian as the worst offender, followed by Lindt, Baileys and Cadbury. Swinson successfully held her seat of East Dunbartonshire in the 2010 general election, although with a slightly decreased majority. Her party, the Liberal Democrats, subsequently entered into a coalition with the Conservative Party. Parliamentary Private Secretary In November 2010, Swinson was made Parliamentary Private Secretary to then Business Secretary Vince Cable. In December 2010, she was one of 27 Liberal Democrat MPs who voted in favour of allowing universities to raise tuition fees up to £9,000 per year. In February 2012, Swinson replaced Norman Lamb as Parliamentary Private Secretary to then Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, holding this position until her promotion to government minister later that year. Business Minister (2012–2015) In September 2012, Swinson was appointed Under Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs in a reshuffle by then Prime Minister David Cameron. She maintained this role for the remainder of the Cameron–Clegg coalition, except for several months of maternity leave between 2013 and 2014. Swinson initially focused efforts on scrapping the 1871 Pedlars Act, which prevents pedlars (travelling salesmen) and street traders from trading without first acquiring a certificate from the police. In November 2012, Swinson said that the proposed deregulation would help "eliminate barriers to street traders and pedlars by making it easier to trade, boosting retail and helping small traders – including many young entrepreneurs – to expand and grow”. The proposal was criticised by the Local Government Association, which claimed that it would lead to a 'free for all' of pedlars targeting vulnerable people. By 2014, however, Swinson announced she would seek to amend rather than repeal the laws. Swinson opposed forcing companies to adopt gender quotas, stating that such a move would "negatively affect" the performance of businesses. She instead promoted voluntary solutions, telling an event organised by the British Chambers of Commerce, "What women need is confidence, not quotas. So rather than telling companies what to do, we're encouraging them to see the real business benefits of taking voluntary action." From 2013, Swinson sought to promote fathers' rights in regard to parental leave, bringing forth new legislation which allowed parents to divide parental leave between themselves with an aim to encourage fathers to spend more time with their newborn infants. In October 2013, controversy emerged after MPs in the House of Commons allowed Swinson, then pregnant, to stand for 20 minutes without offering her a seat. This led to political debate and comment about whether or not it was sexist to give up a seat for a pregnant woman, with Prime Minister David Cameron wading into the row to say that offering pregnant women seats was the right thing to do. Swinson herself later commented that it was not sexist to offer a pregnant woman a seat, and that it was "great for people to offer, and part of life's little courtesies." In the area of employment, she was supportive of both zero hours contracts and flexible working, seeking to promote the latter especially. On minimum wage, in February 2013 Swinson joined calls by other ministers to warn that "caution" was required when increasing it any further amid claims that minimum wage could be cut or frozen if it began costing jobs. Swinson pledged £80,000 of government financial support for the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, an initiative led by corporations including Aviva Investors and Calvert which measures and ranks performance of global companies in regard to human rights. Swinson was keen to promote employee ownership, such as employee ownership of shares, through the establishment of a FTSE-compliant UK Employee Ownership Index, supporting measures to reduce regulations for companies choosing to adopt employee ownership practices, and a scheme allowing companies to contractually offer employees £2,000 to £50,000 worth of shares (which would be exempted from capital gains tax) in exchange for waiving certain employee rights. Swinson traced employee ownership back to the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, and claimed such ownership models improve productivity and lower absenteeism in staff. By 2014, it was being reported that Swinson was tipped to replace Alistair Carmichael as Scottish Secretary and enter the Cabinet in a potential reshuffle, which at the time would have made her the youngest female Cabinet member ever and the first Cabinet member to be born in the 1980s. At the same time, however, electoral projections for the 2015 general election showed Swinson was under serious risk of losing her East Dunbartonshire seat to a surge of Scottish National Party support. Swinson introduced to parliament the Consumer Rights Act 2015 on 23 January 2014, so as to consolidate and update consumer protection law and thereby provide a "modern framework of consumer rights". Shortly before the 2015 general election, The Times and the Financial Times reported that Swinson was one of a number of prominent 'right-leaning' Liberal Democrat MPs, aligned to then Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, deliberately excluded from campaign funding by former leading Liberal Democrat peer and donor Matthew Oakeshott even though their seats, including Swinson's, were vulnerable marginals. Swinson was featured in the 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions of the 'London's 1000 most influential people' list by the Evening Standard. 2015 and 2017 general elections Swinson lost her parliamentary seat in the 2015 general election to Scottish National Party candidate John Nicolson by 2,167 votes (4.0%). She stood again for her former seat during the 2017 general election and won with a lead of 5,339 votes (10.3%) over Nicolson. During this time, she wrote her book Equal Power: And How You Can Make It Happen. Between 2017 and 2018, Swinson received political funding from Mark Petterson, the director of Warwick Energy Ltd, which has fracking licences across England. She also voted against plans to ban fracking in the UK. Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats (2017–2019) Following the resignation of Tim Farron as Liberal Democrat leader on 14 June 2017, Swinson was named by the BBC as one of the possible contenders for the leadership along with Norman Lamb and Vince Cable. She later announced that she would not seek the leadership; instead, she became Deputy Leader after being the only candidate at the close of nominations. As of October 2017, she was her party's Spokesperson for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. At the Liberal Democrat autumn conference of 2017, Swinson drew media attention for using the phrase "Faragey, Trumpy, angry, arsey, shouty slogans" in criticising populism. In the same speech she called for the state visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to be cancelled and warned about Brexit. In February 2018, Swinson's first book Equal Power: And How You Can Make It Happen was published by Atlantic Books. Discussing her book, Swinson explained that government has "limitations" when addressing gender inequality, so her book instead mainly suggests ideas for people to make changes in their own homes and workplaces. The Irish Times likened Equal Power to the "corporate feminism" of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, while The Herald also noted "A read of Equal Power makes it apparent that Swinson is a fan of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In." Swinson's book was featured at the Aye Write! literary festival in Glasgow. In a March 2018 article for The Mail on Sunday, Swinson came out in favour of erecting a statue of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square. She justified her position on feminist grounds and claimed that Thatcher was able to "single-handedly transform the fortunes of women", accusing opponents of the Thatcher statue as being "pretty sexist". Swinson praised Thatcher for her skills in negotiating the UK rebate and for taking the UK into the single market, but was also critical of Thatcher for the poll tax and stressed she did not consider herself a Thatcherite. In addition, she wrote that there should be a statue of the first female First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon in time, though she disagrees with Scottish independence. In July 2018, Swinson was absent for key votes on the Brexit negotiations, having been on maternity leave following the birth of her second son. During this period, she attended an anti-Trump protest, drawing criticism from Labour MP Kate Hoey on The Spectator's podcast. Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis had formally agreed not to vote, so that Swinson's absence would not affect the result. Lewis voted with the government nonetheless, leading Swinson to accuse the government of resorting to "desperate stuff" and a "calculated, deliberate breaking of trust". Lewis apologised, alongside Cabinet Office minister David Lidington and government chief whip Julian Smith. Apologising on Twitter, Lewis said that it was an "honest mistake made by the whips in fast-moving circumstances." Leader of the Liberal Democrats (2019) In May 2019, Vince Cable announced he would relinquish his role as leader of the Liberal Democrats in July, triggering a leadership election. Subsequently, while appearing on the 30 May edition of the BBC political discussion programme Question Time, Swinson confirmed that she would put her name forward in the forthcoming contest. On 22 July 2019, Swinson was elected the first-ever female leader of the Liberal Democrats, with 47,997 (62.8%) votes, gaining a clear victory over Sir Ed Davey, with 28,021 votes. She was the first leader of a major British political party who was born in the 1980s. Under her leadership, the party's candidate and Welsh Liberal Democrats leader Jane Dodds won the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, following a "remain alliance" in which Change UK, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party agreed not to stand candidates. The party's membership also rose to a record 115,000+ members, with many party supporters attributing this rise to what they called "the Swinson surge". In her first Leader's Speech to the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference, on 17 September 2019, Swinson said that Boris Johnson "claims he can negotiate a Brexit deal in a month. I wouldn't hold out much hope: yesterday he couldn't negotiate where to have a press conference". 2019 election campaign Swinson campaigned on a platform of revoking Article 50 if the Liberal Democrats formed the government. The policy proved to be controversial with both Remain and Leave voters, who criticised it as undemocratic. Swinson launched her campaign by declaring that she was "a candidate to be prime minister", and suggesting her party could win a majority. However, poll ratings for the party were poor and Swinson's personal ratings declined throughout the campaign. During the campaign, Swinson clashed with Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland on the subject of nuclear weapons. Asked if she would be prepared to use nuclear weapons, Swinson replied simply "yes". Sturgeon commented that "It's sickening to hear this question asked and answered as if it's some kind of virility test and without any context... Using nuclear weapons would mean killing millions of people." Swinson was subject to a fake news story in which she was accused of 'hunting squirrels'. First Draft News, an organisation that seeks to identify online misinformation, found that the claim originated from a doctored video clip, with a spokesperson for the organisation warning that the propagation of false stories such as this were leading to the "gentle erosion of trust". In November 2019, Swinson also was confronted by Jay Sutherland, a student activist in Scotland. Along with the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Rennie, Swinson was accused of supporting austerity. The student said "People are dying here, they’re in poverty, because of what you’ve done on austerity". The altercation was featured heavily on British news outlets. Afterwards the Liberal Democrats reaffirmed the party "does not have a problem attracting young voters." Swinson’s campaign was reported to be funded by companies selling puberty blockers, a medication that some social conservatives have criticised. In December 2019, it was reported that a pharmaceutical firm marketing drugs to delay puberty had donated £100,000 to the Liberal Democrats. When questioned about her beliefs on sex and gender, Swinson replied that she didn't "think things are as binary as they are often presented”. Swinson ceased to be leader on 13 December 2019, when in the general election she lost her own seat in parliament to the SNP's Amy Callaghan. The party's rules disqualified her from continuing as its leader. She had led the party for 144 days. As well as losing seats, the Liberal Democrats failed to make predicted gains. An internal party review said that their election campaign was worsened by "an inexperienced inner circle" around Swinson. It said that voters who were neither fervently leave nor remain were "effectively ignored" by her promise to revoke Article 50. On 27 August 2020, Sir Ed Davey won the leadership election to succeed her. Later career In July 2020, Swinson accepted a position as visiting professor at Cranfield School of Management in Bedfordshire. In September 2020, she became Director of Partners for a New Economy (P4NE). Personal life On 13 May 2011, Swinson married then fellow Liberal Democrat MP Duncan Hames. The couple's first child, Andrew, was born in December 2013. A second son, Gabriel, was born in June 2018. Swinson gave birth to the couple's third son, Robin, on 28 July 2023. Swinson completed the Loch Ness Marathon in 2007, the 2011 London Marathon and the inaugural Stirling Scottish Marathon in 2017. Through this, she has raised money for the Anaphylaxis Campaign and Bloodwise. She ran the London Landmarks Half Marathon in March 2019 in memory of her father, who had died of blood cancer the previous year. Having a peanut allergy, Swinson sustained anaphylactic shock in May 2013 after eating a biscuit containing nuts in Glasgow. She collapsed with breathing difficulty, recovering on administration of adrenaline, and an overnight stay in hospital. Swinson was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2018 New Year Honours for political and public service. On receiving the honour, Swinson said she was privileged "to be listed among so many remarkable people from all walks of life, making amazing contributions right across our country". Swinson is a humanist and is a member of the humanist charity Humanists UK. References External links Jo Swinson on Twitter Jo Swinson at the Liberal Democrats Profile at the Scottish Liberal Democrats Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom Contributions in Parliament at Hansard Voting record at Public Whip Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou Politics on Demand – includes regular podcasts by Jo Swinson Jo Swinson on Women's Parliamentary Radio Video: People and Parliament – Jo Swinson MP's response, hosted by YouTube on the Liberal Democrats official channel Contributor page at The Guardian

Mark_Arm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Arm

Mark Arm (born Mark Thomas McLaughlin; February 21, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter, best known as the vocalist for the grunge band Mudhoney. His former group, Green River, was one of the first grunge bands, along with Malfunkshun, Soundgarden, Skin Yard, the U-Men, and others. He is also the manager of the Sub Pop warehouse and previously worked at Fantagraphics Books. Early life Arm was born February 21, 1962, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and was raised in Kirkland, Washington. As a child, he was a member of Boy Scouts of America. He graduated from Bellevue Christian High School in Bellevue, Washington. In 1985, Arm earned an English degree with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Washington. Early career Arm first entered the Seattle rock scene in 1980, when he formed a band while still in high school, called "Mr. Epp and the Calculations" with singer Jo Smitty, and Peter Wick, who wrote and recorded their first song,"The Pigeon in the Fountain bed," which caused local radio DJ Stephen Rabow to declare them, "The worst band in the world." The band played its first show in 1981, opening for the band Student Nurse. In 1982 they released a 7-inch EP entitled "Mohawk Man", produced by Johnny Rubato (of Rubato Records, a local used record shop for more than 30 years). The next year they added a second guitarist, Steve Turner, and released a cassette described on the lyric sheet as a "combination of art and hardcore." The cassette featured one side of live recordings and a flip-side of studio recordings and experimental sounds; a sonic amalgamy described in a 1984 issue of Revenge Against Boredom 'zine (produced by notable skateboarding historian Jocko Weyland), as "45 or so minutes of Pillow Fights, Jokes, some songs, preachers' garbled talking. And you get to find out what you get if you give up your personality." Mr. Epp and the Calculations also played with Ten Minute Warning and the Dead Kennedys at the Eagles Auditorium in April. The band came to an end the following year. After Mr. Epp and the Calculations ended, Mark Arm and Steve Turner (who had become close friends) joined the band Limp Richerds for a few weeks. Afterward, Arm and Turner took on future Pearl Jam members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, as well as Alex Vincent, to form the band Green River. Green River released two EPs and a full length album before disbanding. Steve Turner left the band to finish college, and Arm was forced to find a new band again. After Turner returned from schooling, they resumed their Green River side project, The Thrown Ups. Mudhoney Arm and Turner took on drummer Dan Peters, and bassist Matt Lukin, formerly of Melvins. The new band renamed themselves Mudhoney. In 1988, Sub Pop released Mudhoney's first single, "Touch Me I'm Sick". After extensive touring and an EP album, Mudhoney released their self-titled full length debut in 1989. Their next album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge came out soon after, just before the explosion of grunge spearheaded by Nirvana's seminal Nevermind. At the time, Sub Pop, their record label, was "on the verge of bankruptcy, having trouble paying its flagship band, severely delaying the release of the album to July 1991." In 1992, they signed to a major record label, Reprise and released Piece of Cake. The album did not sell well, due to a combination of the band's uncompromising sound and an oversaturation of the genre; according to Stephen Turner, the album references "how easily things had come to them...the songs were kinda half-baked... and Mark wasn't at his best." Although they never achieved the fame of some of their contemporaries, Arm and Mudhoney have made significant contributions to grunge music. Mudhoney is one of the few grunge bands that continue to release albums; in 2002 they released Since We've Become Translucent, Under a Billion Suns in 2005, The Lucky Ones followed in May 2008, Vanishing Point came in April 2013, Digital Garbage came out in September 2018 and, most recently, Plastic Eternity in 2023. All of these releases have been on the Sub Pop record label. Solo and side projects Arm released "The Freewheelin' Mark Arm", a solo single in 1990. He was a singer and guitarist for the group Bloodloss and singer for the Seattle supergroup The Monkeywrench. Monkeywrench members include Arm, Turner, Tim Kerr (Lord Hi Fixers, Big Boys, Poison 13), Tom Price (Gas Huffer) and Martin Bland (Bloodloss). He has also made guest appearances on several albums, most notably on Alice in Chains' 1992 EP Sap. In 1998, he made an appearance on the motion picture soundtrack for the film Velvet Goldmine with Ron Asheton, Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, and Steve Shelley under the name Wylde Ratttz. In 1999, he recorded the vocals for the song "I Need Somebody", a cover of the song by The Stooges, featured on Nebula's first album, To the Center. In 2000, Arm, Turner, Peters, Scott McCaughey, Tom Price and Bill Henderson recorded the album "The New Original Sonic Sound" under the band name The New Strychnines. they recorded a compilation of 16 songs by the legendary mid-1960's Seattle garage band The Sonics. The album was released by Book Records. In 2004, he toured with MC5, standing in for the late Rob Tyner on vocals. In 2013, he contributed vocals on a cover version of The Scientists' "Set It on Fire" for the Melvins' album Everybody Loves Sausages. Personal life Mark Arm lives in Seattle with his wife Emily Rieman and their little dogs. References Further reading Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, (USA: Little Brown, 2001, ISBN 0-316-06379-7) has a chapter on Mudhoney. External links Mark Arm interview on theskinny.co.uk (February 2006) Long 2008 interview with the Washington Post's Express

Mudhoney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudhoney

Mudhoney is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, on January 1, 1988, following the demise of Green River. Its members are singer and rhythm guitarist Mark Arm, lead guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison and drummer Dan Peters. Original bassist Matt Lukin left the band in 1999, but rejoined the band in December 2000 for a tour that lasted through January 2001. Mudhoney's early releases on the Sub Pop label, particularly their debut single "Touch Me I'm Sick" and the Superfuzz Bigmuff EP, were instrumental in the creation of the grunge genre. Although the band found little commercial success and remained somewhat 'underground' and non-mainstream, Mudhoney has released eleven studio albums and inspired countless grunge and alternative rock musicians during their long career. History Mr. Epp and the Calculations: 1978–1984 Mark Arm and Steve Turner met through their association with Mr. Epp and the Calculations. This band formed in 1978 in Bellevue, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. While at Bellevue Christian High School, Mark McLaughlin (later known as Mark Arm) and some friends started Mr. Epp and the Calculations, a band named after a math teacher of his. Initially the band was essentially a joke band rather than a serious one; their first "show" was in class singing Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up", using rolled-up maps as guitars because they could not actually play any instruments. Mr. Epp and the Calculations played their first real show in 1981, three years after they formed. To make the band seem more serious, Mr. Epp added a second guitarist, Steve Turner, who was in a small garage band called The Ducky Boys. Arm and Turner became instant friends. In 1983, three songs of Mr. Epp were included in First Strike: a compilation, the first cassette in the BCT catalog. Mr. Epp and the Calculations appeared on KZAM radio and were introduced as "the worst band in the world." They played their last show on February 3, 1984, with Malfunkshun at Seattle's Metropolis. Arm and Turner formed a joke-punk band called The Limp Richerds in 1984 near the end of Mr. Epp but this band ended shortly after Mr. Epp's ending as well. Green River: 1984–1987 Green River was formed in 1984 when Arm and Turner recruited Alex Vincent as drummer, who had previously played with Turner in the short-lived Spluii Numa. Bassist Jeff Ament joined the band after arriving in Seattle with his band Deranged Diction. Stone Gossard, another of Turner's former bandmates, was recruited as second guitarist. Green River recorded their debut EP, Come on Down, in 1985, and it is considered the first grunge record because it was released several months before the Deep Six album (which featured music by Green River and five other Seattle grunge bands). Turner left the band after its release due to his distaste of the band's hard rock leanings. He was replaced by another Deranged Diction member, Bruce Fairweather. After recording another EP (Dry As a Bone) and a full-length album (Rehab Doll), the band disbanded in late 1987. Gossard, Ament, and Fairweather went on to join Mother Love Bone. Following lead singer Andrew Wood's death, Gossard and Ament went on to form Pearl Jam, and Fairweather joined Love Battery. Sub Pop: 1988–1991 Turner wanted to start a band that practiced before playing to a live audience. He and Arm began songwriting with Bundle of Hiss drummer Dan Peters. The trio decided that Matt Lukin, who had recently left Melvins, should join the band as bassist. The band named themselves after the Russ Meyer film Mudhoney. Early on, Mudhoney's sound would reflect such influences as Dinosaur Jr., Spacemen 3, Neil Young, Black Flag, and the Scientists. In 1988, the band recorded and released their debut EP, Superfuzz Bigmuff, and their first single, "Touch Me I'm Sick", on the Sub Pop label. The single attracted attention and the band enjoyed moderate success in the United States. Mudhoney quickly became Sub Pop's flagship band. Sonic Youth, who were fans of the band, had invited Mudhoney to join them for a tour in the UK in 1989. After this tour Superfuzz Bigmuff entered the British indie charts and they received a respectable amount of press coverage. The band released their first album, Mudhoney, in 1989. Kurt Cobain listed Superfuzz Bigmuff as one of his favourite albums in his journal in 1993. They released their second album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, in 1991. After the album's release they were offered a deal with Reprise Records, and they joined the label in 1992. Reprise: 1992–1999 Mudhoney's first album with Reprise was Piece of Cake. In a 2008 Mojo magazine article, Turner explained the album references "how easily things had come to them ... the songs were kinda half-baked ..." They also contributed a track "Overblown" at this time to the soundtrack to the film Singles. With their 1995 album My Brother the Cow they mixed their earlier and more recent sound, but Turner explained in an article in Mojo, "There was a backlash after Kurt [Cobain] killed himself. The English press were so angry that we were still around. Those were some of the worst reviews we'd ever gotten. We were mocked for still existing." The press was not all negative, as the album received praise in certain U.S. publications, including People magazine: "Leave the brooding anthems to Pearl Jam. Mudhoney delivers pure grunge—messy music that casts a powerful spell." In 1996, Mudhoney appeared in the comedy movie Black Sheep, starring Chris Farley and David Spade. The band was shown performing at an MTV concert and then speaking with Farley backstage. Tomorrow Hit Today was released in September 1998. The album demonstrated a blues-rock influence, and the band used record producer Jim Dickinson, who worked with The Rolling Stones. They recorded the set in three different cities. After a few years of touring, Reprise decided to cut ties with Mudhoney. Subsequently, Lukin left the band. They released March to Fuzz, a retrospective compilation album. After Matt Lukin: 2000–present Mudhoney continued to play some concerts in the Pacific Northwest and recruited permanent bassist Guy Maddison (of Monroe's Fur and Lubricated Goat) who had played with Arm in one of his many side projects, Bloodloss. In 2002, following their return to Sub Pop, the band recorded and released a new studio album, Since We've Become Translucent. This was followed by a major South American tour. In early 2003 the band entered the studio to record "Hard-On For War", that would appear exclusively on Buddyhead Presents: Gimme Skelter compilation album. Later that year the band recorded Under a Billion Suns on which a new version of the song appeared. The album was released in 2006 and received favorable reviews. In 2006 the band also helped to curate an edition of the British All Tomorrow's Parties festival. During 2007, Mudhoney played in Brazil again and went on a brief European tour. In November that year, the band released a live album entitled Live Mud, containing songs recorded at a concert in Mexico. In 2008, Mudhoney began recording their next album with producer Tucker Martine, The Lucky Ones, which was released in May 2008. Shortly thereafter, Sub Pop released a deluxe, remastered edition of Superfuzz Bigmuff. The reissue contained the original EP in its correct running order, along with singles, demos, and two live recordings from 1988. In the liner notes of the reissued Superfuzz Bigmuff, Jay Hinman wrote: My feeling—and I know I'm not alone in this one—is that for all the play and worldwide attention several Seattle-area bands got during the 1988–92 period, at the end of the day (and even at the time), there was Mudhoney—and then there was everybody else. To me, you, and everyone else paying close attention to underground rock music during those years, Mudhoney still sound like the undisputed kingpins of roaring, surging, fuzzed-out, punk music. In 2009, Mudhoney announced a series of live dates. This included an extensive tour of Europe which started in Edinburgh, Scotland with Sub Pop labelmates The Vaselines. The tour ended on October 26. The group performed at the Nelsonville Music Festival in Nelsonville, Ohio, in May 2009. The group played at the ATP New York 2010 music festival in Monticello, New York in September 2010, where they performed Superfuzz Bigmuff in its entirety. In 2011, Pearl Jam had Mudhoney open for them on their 20th Anniversary tour. They were chosen by Mogwai to perform in May 2012 at the All Tomorrow's Parties 'I'll Be Your Mirror' festival at Alexandra Palace, London. In April 2013 the band put out their ninth studio album Vanishing Point, followed by 2018's Digital Garbage. In 2021, Mudhoney and Sub Pop celebrated the 30-year anniversary of Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge with a remastered deluxe version. This included remastered and re-released music videos and songs, as well as previously unreleased songs and demos. Plastic Eternity was released by Sub Pop on April 6, 2023. Members Current members Mark Arm – vocals, rhythm guitar (1988–present) Dan Peters – drums, percussion (1988–present) Steve Turner – lead guitar (1988–present) Guy Maddison – bass guitar (2001–present) Former members Matt Lukin – bass guitar (1988–2001) Discography Superfuzz Bigmuff (1988) Mudhoney (1989) Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (1991) Piece of Cake (1992) My Brother the Cow (1995) Tomorrow Hit Today (1998) Since We've Become Translucent (2002) Under a Billion Suns (2006) The Lucky Ones (2008) Vanishing Point (2013) Digital Garbage (2018) Plastic Eternity (2023) References Other sources Deming, Mark. "Mudhoney". AllMusic. Retrieved May 14, 2005. Vinylnet Record Label Discographies. link. – Sub Pop catalogue references. External links Mudhoney discography at Discogs Mudhoney at IMDb

Mudhoney_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudhoney_(film)

Mudhoney (sometimes Mud Honey) is a 1965 Southern Gothic film directed by Russ Meyer. It is based on the novel Streets Paved With Gold by Raymond Friday Locke. The film is a period drama set during the Great Depression. "I got in a little bit over my head," Meyer said about the film. "That's when I thought I was Erskine Caldwell, John Steinbeck and George Stevens all in one." The film became the inspiration for the name of pioneering Seattle grunge band Mudhoney, formed in 1988. American singer-songwriter Norah Jones' album cover for Little Broken Hearts was based upon a poster for the film. Plot In this Depression-era tale, Calef McKinney (John Furlong) is traveling from Michigan to California and stops in Spooner, Missouri, where Lute Wade (Stuart Lancaster) hires him for odd jobs. McKinney gets involved with Wade's niece, Hannah Brenshaw (Antoinette Cristiani). But she is married to Sidney (Hal Hopper), a wife-beating drunk who hopes to inherit his uncle-in-law's money. Sidney and an eccentric preacher named Brother Hanson (Frank Bolger) plot against McKinney, who finds it difficult to conceal his mysterious past and his growing affection for Sidney's wife. Sidney winds up burning his farm and attempting to frame McKinney. He rapes and murders the preacher's wife and is killed by the lynch mob. Cast Hal Hopper as Sidney Brenshaw Antoinette Cristiani as Hannah Brenshaw John Furlong as Calif McKinney Stuart Lancaster as Lute Wade Rena Horten as Eula Princess Livingston as Maggie Marie Lorna Maitland as Clara Belle Sam Hanna as Injoys Nick Wolcuff as Sheriff Abel Frank Bolger as Brother Hanson Lee Ballard as Sister Hanson Mickey Foxx as Thurmond Pate F. Rufus Owens as Milton Production The film was based on a novel, Streets Paved with Gold by Friday Locke. Reception Box Office The film was a financial failure. Meyer later said, "I made a gamble with Mudhoney and I failed. The only reason I made Mudhoney was I was in love with a girl named Rena. I should have not made the film." Critical The Los Angeles Times called it "the perfect dirty picture. Unspoiled by either undue sadism or outright nudity... a flawless piece of unintentional camp." Roger Ebert called the film "Meyer's neglected masterpiece: his most interesting, most ambitious, most complex and longest independent production. He describes it as a case of over-achievement; it was not necessary, or perhaps even wise, he believes, to expend so much energy on a movie that had so little directly exploitable elements." Ebert said "Meyer's visual invention, always dramatic and energetic, has never been better than in this one. From the Hitchcockian opening (bare feet seen in a closeup on intersecting passages) to such Grand Guignol shots as a body falling into a grave from the grave's P. O. V., this is a melodrama taken to obsessed extremes." See also List of American films of 1965 References External links Mudhoney at IMDb Mudhoney at AllMovie Mudhoney at TCMDB Mudhoney at Letterbox DVD

2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

On 11 March 2011, at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC), a Mw 9.0–9.1 undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, 72 km (45 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approximately six minutes and caused a tsunami. It is sometimes known in Japan as the "Great East Japan Earthquake" (東日本大震災, Higashi nihon daishinsai), among other names. The disaster is often referred to by its numerical date, 3.11 (read san ten ichi-ichi in Japanese). It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that may have reached heights of up to 40.5 meters (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, traveled at 700 km/h (435 mph) and up to 10 km (6 mi) inland. Residents of Sendai had only eight to ten minutes of warning, and more than a hundred evacuation sites were washed away. The snowfall which accompanied the tsunami and the freezing temperature hindered rescue works greatly; for instance, Ishinomaki, the city with the most deaths, was 0 °C (32 °F) as the tsunami hit. The official figures released in 2021 reported 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing, and a report from 2015 indicated 228,863 people were still living away from their home in either temporary housing or due to permanent relocation. The tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, primarily the meltdowns of three of its reactors, the discharge of radioactive water in Fukushima and the associated evacuation zones affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. Many electrical generators ran out of fuel. The loss of electrical power halted cooling systems, causing heat to build up. The heat build-up caused the generation of hydrogen gas. Without ventilation, gas accumulated within the upper refueling hall and eventually exploded causing the refueling hall's blast panels to be forcefully ejected from the structure. Residents within a 20 km (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and a 10 km (6.2 mi) radius of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated. Early estimates placed insured losses from the earthquake alone at US$14.5 to $34.6 billion. The Bank of Japan offered ¥15 trillion (US$183 billion) to the banking system on 14 March 2011 in an effort to normalize market conditions. The estimated economic damages amounted to over $300 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in history. According to a 2020 study, "the earthquake and its aftermaths resulted in a 0.47 percentage point decline in Japan's real GDP growth in the year following the disaster." Earthquake The magnitude 9.1 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake occurred on 11 March 2011 at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) in the north-western Pacific Ocean at a relatively shallow depth of 32 km (20 mi), with its epicenter approximately 72 km (45 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku, Japan, lasting approximately six minutes. The earthquake was initially reported as 7.9 Mw by the USGS before it was quickly upgraded to 8.8 Mw, then to 8.9 Mw, and then finally to 9.0 Mw. On 11 July 2016, the USGS further upgraded the earthquake to 9.1. Sendai was the nearest major city to the earthquake, 130 km (81 mi) from the epicenter; the earthquake occurred 373 km (232 mi) northeast of Tokyo. The main earthquake was preceded by a number of large foreshocks, with hundreds of aftershocks reported. One of the first major foreshocks was a 7.2 Mw event on 9 March, approximately 40 km (25 mi) from the epicenter of the 11 March earthquake, with another three on the same day in excess of 6.0 Mw. Following the main earthquake on 11 March, a 7.4 Mw aftershock was reported at 15:08 JST (6:06 UTC), succeeded by a 7.9 Mw at 15:15 JST (6:16 UTC) and a 7.7 Mw at 15:26 JST (6:26 UTC). Over 800 aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 Mw or greater have occurred since the initial quake, including one on 26 October 2013 (local time) of magnitude 7.1 Mw. Aftershocks follow Omori's law, which states that the rate of aftershocks declines with the reciprocal of the time since the main quake. The aftershocks will thus taper off in time, but could continue for years. The earthquake moved Honshu 2.4 m (8 ft) east, shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 and 25 cm (4 and 10 in), increased Earth's rotational speed by 1.8 μs per day, and generated infrasound waves detected in perturbations of the low-orbiting Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite. Initially, the earthquake caused sinking of part of Honshu's Pacific coast by up to roughly a metre, but after about three years, the coast rose back and then kept on rising to exceed its original height. Geology This megathrust earthquake was a recurrence of the mechanism of the earlier 869 Sanriku earthquake, which has been estimated as having a magnitude of at least 8.4 Mw, which also created a large tsunami that inundated the Sendai plain. Three tsunami deposits have been identified within the Holocene sequence of the plain, all formed within the last 3,000 years, suggesting an 800 to 1,100 year recurrence interval for large tsunamigenic earthquakes. In 2001 it was reckoned that there was a high likelihood of a large tsunami hitting the Sendai plain as more than 1,100 years had then elapsed. In 2007, the probability of an earthquake with a magnitude of Mw 8.1–8.3 was estimated as 99% within the following 30 years. This earthquake occurred where the Pacific Plate is subducting under the plate beneath northern Honshu. The Pacific Plate, which moves at a rate of 8 to 9 cm (3.1 to 3.5 in) per year, dips under Honshu's underlying plate, building large amounts of elastic energy. This motion pushes the upper plate down until the accumulated stress causes a seismic slip-rupture event. The break caused the sea floor to rise by several metres. The magnitude of this earthquake was a surprise to some seismologists. A quake of this magnitude usually has a rupture length of at least 500 km (310 mi) and generally requires a long, relatively straight fault surface. Because the plate boundary and subduction zone in the area of the Honshu rupture is not very straight, it is unusual for the magnitude of its earthquake to exceed 8.5 Mw. The hypocentral region of this earthquake extended from offshore Iwate Prefecture to offshore Ibaraki Prefecture. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said that the earthquake may have ruptured the fault zone from Iwate to Ibaraki with a length of 500 km (310 mi) and a width of 200 km (120 mi). Analysis showed that this earthquake consisted of a set of three events. Other major earthquakes with tsunamis struck the Sanriku Coast region in 1896 and in 1933. The source area of this earthquake has a relatively high coupling coefficient surrounded by areas of relatively low coupling coefficients in the west, north, and south. From the averaged coupling coefficient of 0.5–0.8 in the source area and the seismic moment, it was estimated that the slip deficit of this earthquake was accumulated over a period of 260–880 years, which is consistent with the recurrence interval of such great earthquakes estimated from the tsunami deposit data. The seismic moment of this earthquake accounts for about 93% of the estimated cumulative moment from 1926 to March 2011. Hence, earthquakes in this area with magnitudes of about 7 since 1926 had only released part of the accumulated energy. In the area near the trench, the coupling coefficient is high, which could act as the source of the large tsunami. Most of the foreshocks are interplate earthquakes with thrust-type focal mechanisms. Both interplate and intraplate earthquakes appeared in the aftershocks offshore Sanriku coast with considerable proportions. Energy The surface energy of the seismic waves from the earthquake was calculated to be 1.9×1017 joules, which is nearly double that of the 9.1 Mw 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed 230,000 people. If harnessed, the seismic energy from this earthquake would power a city the size of Los Angeles for an entire year. The seismic moment (M0), which represents a physical size for the event, was calculated by the USGS at 3.9×1022 joules, slightly less than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake. Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) calculated a peak ground acceleration of 2.99 g (29.33 m/s2). The largest individual recording in Japan was 2.7 g, in Miyagi Prefecture, 75 km from the epicentre; the highest reading in the Tokyo metropolitan area was 0.16 g. Intensity The strong ground motion registered at the maximum of 7 on the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture. Three other prefectures—Fukushima, Ibaraki and Tochigi—recorded a 6 upper on the JMA scale. Seismic stations in Iwate, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba Prefecture measured a 6 lower, recording a 5 upper in Tokyo. Geophysical effects Portions of northeastern Japan shifted by as much as 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) closer to North America, making some sections of Japan's landmass wider than before. Those areas of Japan closest to the epicenter experienced the largest shifts. A 400-kilometre (250 mi) stretch of coastline dropped vertically by 0.6 metres (2 ft 0 in), allowing the tsunami to travel farther and faster onto land. One early estimate suggested that the Pacific plate may have moved westward by up to 20 metres (66 ft), and another early estimate put the amount of slippage at as much as 40 m (130 ft). On 6 April the Japanese coast guard said that the quake shifted the seabed near the epicenter 24 metres (79 ft) and elevated the seabed off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture by 3 metres (9.8 ft). A report by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, published in Science on 2 December 2011, concluded that the seabed in the area between the epicenter and the Japan Trench moved 50 metres (160 ft) east-southeast and rose about 7 metres (23 ft) as a result of the quake. The report also stated that the quake had caused several major landslides on the seabed in the affected area. The Earth's axis shifted by estimates of between 10 and 25 cm (4 and 10 in). This deviation led to a number of small planetary changes, including the length of a day, the tilt of the Earth, and the Chandler wobble. The speed of the Earth's rotation increased, shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds due to the redistribution of Earth's mass. The axial shift was caused by the redistribution of mass on the Earth's surface, which changed the planet's moment of inertia. Because of conservation of angular momentum, such changes of inertia result in small changes to the Earth's rate of rotation. These are expected changes for an earthquake of this magnitude. The earthquake also generated infrasound waves detected by perturbations in the orbit of the GOCE satellite, which thus serendipitously became the first seismograph in orbit. Following the earthquake, cracks were observed to have formed in the roof of Mount Fuji's magma chamber. Seiches observed in Sognefjorden, Norway were attributed to distant S waves and Love waves generated by the earthquake. These seiches began to occur roughly half an hour after the main shock hit Japan, and continued to occur for 3 hours, during which waves of up to 1.5 meters high were observed. Soil liquefaction was evident in areas of reclaimed land around Tokyo, particularly in Urayasu, Chiba City, Funabashi, Narashino (all in Chiba Prefecture) and in the Koto, Edogawa, Minato, Chūō, and Ōta Wards of Tokyo. Approximately 30 homes or buildings were destroyed and 1,046 other buildings were damaged to varying degrees. Nearby Haneda Airport, built mostly on reclaimed land, was not damaged. Odaiba also experienced liquefaction, but damage was minimal. Shinmoedake, a volcano in Kyushu, erupted three days after the earthquake. The volcano had previously erupted in January 2011; it is not known if the later eruption was linked to the earthquake. In Antarctica, the seismic waves from the earthquake were reported to have caused the Whillans Ice Stream to slip by about 0.5 metres (1 ft 8 in). The first sign international researchers had that the earthquake caused such a dramatic change in the Earth's rotation came from the United States Geological Survey which monitors Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) stations across the world. The Survey team had several GPS monitors located near the scene of the earthquake. The GPS station located nearest the epicenter moved almost 4 m (13 ft). This motivated government researchers to look into other ways the earthquake may have had large scale effects on the planet. Calculations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory determined that the Earth's rotation was changed by the earthquake to the point where the days are now 1.8 microseconds shorter. Aftershocks Japan experienced over 1,000 aftershocks since the earthquake, with 80 registering over magnitude 6.0 Mw and several of which have been over magnitude 7.0 Mw. A magnitude 7.4 Mw at 15:08 (JST), 7.9 Mw at 15:15 and a 7.7 Mw quake at 15:26 all occurred on 11 March. A month later, a major aftershock struck offshore on 7 April with a magnitude of 7.1 Mw. Its epicenter was underwater, 66 km (41 mi) off the coast of Sendai. The Japan Meteorological Agency assigned a magnitude of 7.4 MJMA, while the U.S. Geological Survey lowered it to 7.1 Mw. At least four people were killed, and electricity was cut off across much of northern Japan including the loss of external power to Higashidōri Nuclear Power Plant and Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Four days later on 11 April, another magnitude 7.1 Mw aftershock struck Fukushima, causing additional damage and killing a total of three people. On 7 December 2012 a large aftershock of magnitude 7.3 Mw caused a minor tsunami, and again on 26 October 2013 a small tsunami was recorded after a 7.1 Mw aftershock. As of 16 March 2012 aftershocks continued, totaling 1887 events over magnitude 4.0; a regularly updated map showing all shocks of magnitude 4.5 and above near or off the east coast of Honshu in the last seven days showed over 20 events. As of 11 March 2016 there had been 869 aftershocks of 5.0 Mw or greater, 118 of 6.0 Mw or greater, and 9 over 7.0 Mw as reported by the Japanese Meteorological Agency. The number of aftershocks was associated with decreased health across Japan. On 13 February 2021, a magnitude 7.1–7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Sendai. It caused some damage in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. One person was killed, and 185 were injured. Land subsidence The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan reported land subsidence based on the height of triangulation stations in the area measured by GPS as compared to their previous values from 14 April 2011. Miyako, Iwate – 0.50 metres (1 ft 8 in) Yamada, Iwate – 0.53 metres (1 ft 9 in) Ōtsuchi, Iwate – 0.35 metres (1 ft 2 in) Kamaishi, Iwate – 0.66 metres (2 ft 2 in) Ōfunato, Iwate – 0.73 metres (2 ft 5 in) Rikuzentakata, Iwate – 0.84 metres (2 ft 9 in) Kesennuma, Miyagi – 0.74 metres (2 ft 5 in) Minamisanriku, Miyagi – 0.69 metres (2 ft 3 in) Oshika Peninsula, Miyagi – 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) Ishinomaki, Miyagi – 0.78 metres (2 ft 7 in) Higashimatsushima, Miyagi – 0.43 metres (1 ft 5 in) Iwanuma, Miyagi – 0.47 metres (1 ft 7 in) Sōma, Fukushima – 0.29 metres (11 in) Scientists say that the subsidence is permanent. As a result, the communities in question are now more susceptible to flooding during high tides. Earthquake Warning System One minute before the earthquake was felt in Tokyo, the Earthquake Early Warning system, which includes more than 1,000 seismometers in Japan, sent out warnings of impending strong shaking to millions. It is believed that the early warning by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) saved many lives. The warning for the general public was delivered about eight seconds after the first P wave was detected, or about 31 seconds after the earthquake occurred. However, the estimated intensities were smaller than the actual ones in some places, especially in Kanto, Koshinetsu, and Northern Tōhoku regions where the populace warning did not trigger. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, reasons for the underestimation include a saturated magnitude scale when using maximum amplitude as input, failure to fully take into account the area of the hypocenter, and the initial amplitude of the earthquake being less than that which would be predicted by an empirical relationship. There were also cases where large differences between estimated intensities by the Earthquake Early Warning system and the actual intensities occurred in the aftershocks and triggered earthquakes. Such discrepancies in the warning were attributed by the JMA to the system's inability to distinguish between two different earthquakes that happened at around same time, as well as to the reduced number of reporting seismometers due to power outages and connection failures. The system's software was subsequently modified to handle this kind of situation. Tsunami An upthrust of 6 to 8 metres (20 to 26 ft) along a 180 kilometres (110 mi) wide seabed at 60 kilometres (37 mi) offshore from the east coast of Tōhoku resulted in a major tsunami that brought destruction along the Pacific coastline of Japan's northern islands. Thousands of people died and entire towns were devastated. The tsunami propagated throughout the Pacific Ocean region reaching the entire Pacific coast of North and South America from Alaska to Chile. Warnings were issued and evacuations were carried out in many countries bordering the Pacific. Although the tsunami affected many of these places, the heights of the waves were minor. Chile's Pacific coast, one of the farthest from Japan at about 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) away, was struck by waves 2 metres (6.6 ft) high, compared with an estimated wave height of 38.9 metres (128 ft) at Omoe peninsula, Miyako city, Japan. Japan The tsunami warning issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency was the most serious on its warning scale; it was rated as a "major tsunami", being at least 3 metres (9.8 ft) high. The actual height prediction varied, the greatest being for Miyagi at 6 metres (20 ft) high. The tsunami inundated a total area of approximately 561 square kilometres (217 sq mi) in Japan. The earthquake took place at 14:46 JST (UTC 05:46) around 67 kilometres (42 mi) from the nearest point on Japan's coastline, and initial estimates indicated the tsunami would have taken 10 to 30 minutes to reach the areas first affected, and then areas farther north and south based on the geography of the coastline. At 15:55 JST, a tsunami was observed flooding Sendai Airport, which is located near the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, with waves sweeping away cars and planes and flooding various buildings as they traveled inland. The impact of the tsunami in and around Sendai Airport was filmed by an NHK News helicopter, showing a number of vehicles on local roads trying to escape the approaching wave and being engulfed by it. A 4-metre-high (13 ft) tsunami hit Iwate Prefecture. Wakabayashi Ward in Sendai was also particularly hard hit. At least 101 designated tsunami evacuation sites were hit by the wave. Like the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the damage by surging water, though much more localized, was far more deadly and destructive than the actual quake. Entire towns were destroyed in tsunami-hit areas in Japan, including 9,500 missing in Minamisanriku; one thousand bodies had been recovered in the town by 14 March 2011. Among the factors in the high death toll was the unexpectedly large water surge. The sea walls in several cities had been built to protect against tsunamis of much lower heights. Also, many people caught in the tsunami thought they were on high enough ground to be safe. According to a special committee on disaster prevention designated by the Japanese government, the tsunami protection policy had been intended to deal with only tsunamis that had been scientifically proved to occur repeatedly. The committee advised that future policy should be to protect against the highest possible tsunami. Because tsunami walls had been overtopped, the committee also suggested, besides building taller tsunami walls, also teaching citizens how to evacuate if a large-scale tsunami should strike. Large parts of Kuji and the southern section of Ōfunato including the port area were almost entirely destroyed. Also largely destroyed was Rikuzentakata, where the tsunami was three stories high. Other cities destroyed or heavily damaged by the tsunami include Kamaishi, Miyako, Ōtsuchi, and Yamada (in Iwate Prefecture), Namie, Sōma, and Minamisōma (in Fukushima Prefecture) and Shichigahama, Higashimatsushima, Onagawa, Natori, Ishinomaki, and Kesennuma (in Miyagi Prefecture). The most severe effects of the tsunami were felt along a 670-kilometre-long (420 mi) stretch of coastline from Erimo, Hokkaido, in the north to Ōarai, Ibaraki, in the south, with most of the destruction in that area occurring in the hour following the earthquake. Near Ōarai, people captured images of a huge whirlpool that had been generated by the tsunami. The tsunami washed away the sole bridge to Miyatojima, Miyagi, isolating the island's 900 residents. A 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high tsunami hit Chiba Prefecture about 2+1⁄2 hours after the quake, causing heavy damage to cities such as Asahi. On 13 March 2011, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) published details of tsunami observations recorded around the coastline of Japan following the earthquake. These observations included tsunami maximum readings of over 3 metres (9.8 ft) at the following locations and times on 11 March 2011, following the earthquake at 14:46 JST: 15:12 JST – off Kamaishi – 6.8 metres (22 ft) 15:15 JST – Ōfunato – 3.2 metres (10 ft) or higher 15:20 JST – Ishinomaki-shi Ayukawa – 3.3 metres (11 ft) or higher 15:21 JST – Miyako – 4 metres (13 ft) or higher 15:21 JST – Kamaishi – 4.1 metres (13 ft) or higher 15:44 JST – Erimo-cho Shoya – 3.5 metres (11 ft) 15:50 JST – Sōma – 7.3 metres (24 ft) or higher 16:52 JST – Ōarai – 4.2 metres (14 ft) Many areas were also affected by waves of 1 to 3 metres (3 ft 3 in to 9 ft 10 in) in height, and the JMA bulletin also included the caveat that "At some parts of the coasts, tsunamis may be higher than those observed at the observation sites." The timing of the earliest recorded tsunami maximum readings ranged from 15:12 to 15:21, between 26 and 35 minutes after the earthquake had struck. The bulletin also included initial tsunami observation details, as well as more detailed maps for the coastlines affected by the tsunami waves. JMA also reported offshore tsunami height recorded by telemetry from moored GPS wave-height meter buoys as follows: offshore of central Iwate (Miyako) – 6.3 metres (21 ft) offshore of northern Iwate (Kuji) – 6 metres (20 ft) offshore of northern Miyagi (Kesennuma) – 6 metres (20 ft) On 25 March 2011, Port and Airport Research Institute (PARI) reported tsunami height by visiting the port sites as follows: Port of Hachinohe – 5–6 metres (16–20 ft) Port of Hachinohe area – 8–9 metres (26–30 ft) Port of Kuji – 8–9 metres (26–30 ft) Port of Kamaishi – 7–9 metres (23–30 ft) Port of Ōfunato – 9.5 metres (31 ft) Run up height, port of Ōfunato area – 24 metres (79 ft) Fishery port of Onagawa – 15 metres (49 ft) Port of Ishinomaki – 5 metres (16 ft) Shiogama section of Shiogama-Sendai port – 4 metres (13 ft) Sendai section of Shiogama-Sendai port – 8 metres (26 ft) Sendai Airport area – 12 metres (39 ft) The tsunami at Ryōri Bay (綾里湾), Ōfunato reached a height of 40.1 metres (132 ft) (run-up elevation). Fishing equipment was scattered on the high cliff above the bay. At Tarō, Iwate, the tsunami reached a height of 37.9 metres (124 ft) up the slope of a mountain some 200 metres (660 ft) away from the coastline. Also, at the slope of a nearby mountain from 400 metres (1,300 ft) away at Aneyoshi fishery port (姉吉漁港) of Omoe peninsula (重茂半島) in Miyako, Iwate, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology found estimated tsunami run up height of 38.9 metres (128 ft). This height is deemed the record in Japan historically, as of reporting date, that exceeds 38.2 metres (125 ft) from the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake. It was also estimated that the tsunami reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture. The inundated areas closely matched those of the 869 Sanriku tsunami. Inundation heights were observed along 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) of the coast from Hokkaido to Kyushu in a 2012 study. Maximum run-up heights greater than 10 metres (33 ft) were distributed along 530 kilometres (330 mi) of coast, and maximum run-up heights greater than 20 metres (66 ft) were distributed along 200 kilometres (120 mi) of the coast, measured directly. The tsunami resulted in significant erosion of the Rikuzen-Takata coastline, mainly caused by backwash. A 2016 study indicated that the coast has not naturally recovered at a desirable rate since the tsunami. A Japanese government study found that 58% of people in coastal areas in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures heeded tsunami warnings immediately after the quake and headed for higher ground. Of those who attempted to evacuate after hearing the warning, only five percent were caught in the tsunami. Of those who did not heed the warning, 49% were hit by the water. Delayed evacuations in response to the warnings had a number of causes. The tsunami height that had been initially predicted by the tsunami warning system was lower than the actual tsunami height; this error contributed to the delayed escape of some residents. The discrepancy arose as follows: in order to produce a quick prediction of a tsunami's height and thus to provide a timely warning, the initial earthquake and tsunami warning that was issued for the event was based on a calculation that requires only about three minutes. This calculation is, in turn, based on the maximum amplitude of the seismic wave. The amplitude of the seismic wave is measured using the JMA magnitude scale, which is similar to Richter magnitude scale. However, these scales "saturate" for earthquakes that are above a certain magnitude (magnitude 8 on the JMA scale); that is, in the case of very large earthquakes, the scales' values change little despite large differences in the earthquakes' energy. This resulted in an underestimation of the tsunami's height in initial reports. Problems in issuing updates also contributed to delays in evacuations. The warning system was supposed to be updated about 15 minutes after the earthquake occurred, by which time the calculation for the moment magnitude scale would normally be completed. However, the strong quake had exceeded the measurement limit of all of the teleseismometers within Japan, and thus it was impossible to calculate the moment magnitude based on data from those seismometers. Another cause of delayed evacuations was the release of the second update on the tsunami warning long after the earthquake (28 minutes, according to observations); by that time, power failures and similar circumstances reportedly prevented the update from reaching some residents. Also, observed data from tidal meters that were located off the coast were not fully reflected in the second warning. Furthermore, shortly after the earthquake, some wave meters reported a fluctuation of "20 centimetres (7.9 in)", and this value was broadcast throughout the mass media and the warning system, which caused some residents to underestimate the danger of their situation and even delayed or suspended their evacuation. In response to the aforementioned shortcomings in the tsunami warning system, JMA began an investigation in 2011 and updated their system in 2013. In the updated system, for a powerful earthquake that is capable of causing the JMA magnitude scale to saturate, no quantitative prediction will be released in the initial warning; instead, there will be words that describe the situation's emergency. There are plans to install new teleseismometers with the ability to measure larger earthquakes, which would allow the calculation of a quake's moment magnitude scale in a timely manner. JMA also implemented a simpler empirical method to integrate, into a tsunami warning, data from GPS tidal meters as well as from undersea water pressure meters, and there are plans to install more of these meters and to develop further technology to utilize data observed by them. To prevent under-reporting of tsunami heights, early quantitative observation data that are smaller than the expected amplitude will be overridden and the public will instead be told that the situation is under observation. About 90 seconds after an earthquake, an additional report on the possibility of a tsunami will also be included in observation reports, in order to warn people before the JMA magnitude can be calculated. Elsewhere across the Pacific The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii issued tsunami watches and announcements for locations in the Pacific. At 07:30 UTC, PTWC issued a widespread tsunami warning covering the entire Pacific Ocean. Russia evacuated 11,000 residents from coastal areas of the Kuril Islands. The United States National Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coastal areas in most of California, all of Oregon, and the western part of Alaska, and a tsunami advisory covering the Pacific coastlines of most of Alaska, and all of Washington and British Columbia, Canada. In California and Oregon, up to 2.4 m-high (7.9 ft) tsunami waves hit some areas, damaging docks and harbors and causing over US$10 million in damage. In Curry County, Oregon, US$7 million in damage occurred including the destruction of 1,100 m (3,600 ft) of docks at the Brookings harbor; the county received over US$1 million in FEMA emergency grants from the US Federal Government. Surges of up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) hit Vancouver Island in Canada prompting some evacuations, and causing boats to be banned from the waters surrounding the island for 12 hours following the wave strike, leaving many island residents in the area without means of getting to work. In the Philippines, waves up to 0.5 m (1 ft 8 in) high hit the eastern seaboard of the country. Some houses along the coast in Jayapura, Indonesia were destroyed. Authorities in Wewak, East Sepik, Papua New Guinea evacuated 100 patients from the city's Boram Hospital before it was hit by waves, causing an estimated US$4 million in damage. Hawaii estimated damage to public infrastructure alone at US$3 million, with damage to private properties, including resort hotels such as Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, estimated at tens of millions of dollars. It was reported that a 1.5 m-high (4.9 ft) wave completely submerged Midway Atoll's reef inlets and Spit Island, killing more than 110,000 nesting seabirds at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Some other South Pacific countries, including Tonga and New Zealand, and US territories American Samoa and Guam, experienced larger-than-normal waves, but did not report any major damage. However, in Guam some roads were closed off and people were evacuated from low-lying areas. Along the Pacific Coast of Mexico and South America, tsunami surges were reported, but in most places caused little or no damage. Peru reported a wave of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) and more than 300 homes damaged. The surge in Chile was large enough to damage more than 200 houses, with waves of up to 3 m (9.8 ft). In the Galápagos Islands, 260 families received assistance following a 3 m (9.8 ft) surge which arrived 20 hours after the earthquake, after the tsunami warning had been lifted. There was a great deal of damage to buildings on the islands and one man was injured but there were no reported fatalities. After a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high surge hit Chile, it was reported that the reflection from those surges traveled back across the Pacific, causing a 30–60 cm (12–24 in) surge in Japan, 47–48 hours after the earthquake, according to observation from multiple tide gauges, including in Onahama, Owase, and Kushimoto. The tsunami broke icebergs off the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica, 13,000 km (8,100 mi) away. The main iceberg measured 9.5 km × 6.5 km (5.9 mi × 4.0 mi) (approximately the area of Manhattan Island) and about 80 m (260 ft) thick. A total of 125 km2 (48 sq mi; 31,000 acres) of ice broke away. As of April 2012, wreckage from the tsunami spread around the world, including a soccer ball which was found in Alaska's Middleton Island and a Japanese motorcycle found in British Columbia, Canada. Norway On the day of the earthquake, the waters of several fjords across Norway appeared to seethe as if boiling, and formed waves that rolled onto shores, most prominently in Sognefjorden, where the phenomenon was caught on film. After two years of research, scientists concluded that the massive earthquake also triggered these surprise seiche waves thousands of miles away. Casualties Japan Key statistics The official figures released in 2021 reported 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing. There were 10,567 deaths in Miyagi, 5,145 in Iwate, 3,920 in Fukushima, 66 in Ibaraki, 22 in Chiba, eight in Tokyo, six in Kanagawa, four in Tochigi, three each in Aomori and Yamagata, and one each in Gunma, Saitama and Hokkaido. The leading causes of death were drowning (90.64% or 14,308 bodies), burning (0.9% or 145 bodies) and others (4.2% or 667 bodies, mostly crushed by heavy objects). Injuries related to nuclear exposure or the discharge of radioactive water in Fukushima are difficult to trace as 60% of the 20,000 workers on-site declined to participate in state-sponsored free health checks. Elderly aged over 60 account for 65.8% of all deaths, as shown on the table to the right. In particular, in the Okawa Elementary School tragedy in which 84 drowned, it was discovered that in the wake of the tsunami, young housewives who wanted to pick up their children to high ground found their voices drowned out by retired, elderly, male villagers, who preferred to stay put at the school, which was a sea-level evacuation site meant for earthquakes but not tsunamis. Richard Lloyd Parry concluded the tragedy to be "the ancient dialogue [...] between the entreating voices of women, and the oblivious, overbearing dismissiveness of old men". For the purpose of relief fund, an "earthquake-related death" was defined to include "Physical and mental fatigue caused by life in temporary shelter", "Physical and mental fatigue caused by evacuation", "Delayed treatment due to an inoperative hospital", "Physical and mental fatigue caused by stress from the earthquake and tsunami". A few cases of suicide are also included. Most of these deaths occurred during the first six months after the earthquake and the number dropped thereafter, but as time has passed, the number has continued to increase. Most of these deaths occurred in Fukushima Prefecture, where the prefectural government has suggested that they could be due to evacuations caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Within Fukushima Prefecture, these indirect casualties have already resulted in more deaths than the number of people killed directly by earthquake and tsunami. Others Save the Children reports that as many as 100,000 children were uprooted from their homes, some of whom were separated from their families because the earthquake occurred during the school day. 236 children were orphaned in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima by the disaster; 1,580 children lost either one or both parents, 846 in Miyagi, 572 in Iwate, and 162 in Fukushima. The quake and tsunami killed 378 elementary, middle-school, and high school students and left 158 others missing. One elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Okawa Elementary School, lost 74 of 108 students and 10 of 13 teachers in the tsunami due to poor decision making in evacuation. The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed the deaths of nineteen foreigners. Among them were two English teachers from the United States affiliated with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program; a Canadian missionary in Shiogama; and citizens of China, North and South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan and the Philippines. By 9:30 UTC on 11 March 2011, Google Person Finder, which was previously used in the Haitian, Chilean, and Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes, was collecting information about survivors and their locations. Japanese funerals are normally elaborate Buddhist ceremonies that entail cremation. The thousands of bodies, however, exceeded the capacity of available crematoriums and morgues, many of them damaged, and there were shortages of both kerosene—each cremation requires 50 litres—and dry ice for preservation. The single crematorium in Higashimatsushima, for example, could only handle four bodies a day, although hundreds were found there. Governments and the military were forced to bury many bodies in hastily dug mass graves with rudimentary or no rites, although relatives of the deceased were promised that they would be cremated later. As of 27 May 2011, three Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members had died while conducting relief operations in Tōhoku. As of March 2012, the Japanese government had recognized 1,331 deaths as indirectly related to the earthquake, such as caused by harsh living conditions after the disaster. As of 30 April 2012, 18 people had died and 420 had been injured while participating in disaster recovery or clean-up efforts. Overseas The tsunami was reported to have caused several deaths outside Japan. One man was killed in Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia after being swept out to sea. A man who is said to have been attempting to photograph the oncoming tsunami at the mouth of the Klamath River, south of Crescent City, California, was swept out to sea. His body was found on 2 April 2011 along Ocean Beach in Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon, 530 km (330 mi) to the north. Damage and effects The degree and extent of damage caused by the earthquake and resulting tsunami were enormous, with most of the damage being caused by the tsunami. Video footage of the towns that were worst affected shows little more than piles of rubble, with almost no parts of any structures left standing. Estimates of the cost of the damage range well into the tens of billions of US dollars; before-and-after satellite photographs of devastated regions show immense damage to many regions. Although Japan has invested the equivalent of billions of dollars on anti-tsunami seawalls which line at least 40% of its 34,751 km (21,593 mi) coastline and stand up to 12 m (39 ft) high, the tsunami simply washed over the top of some seawalls, collapsing some in the process. Japan's National Police Agency said on 3 April 2011, that 45,700 buildings were destroyed and 144,300 were damaged by the quake and tsunami. The damaged buildings included 29,500 structures in Miyagi Prefecture, 12,500 in Iwate Prefecture and 2,400 in Fukushima Prefecture. Three hundred hospitals with 20 beds or more in Tōhoku were damaged by the disaster, with 11 being completely destroyed. The earthquake and tsunami created an estimated 24–25 million tons of rubble and debris in Japan. A report by the National Police Agency of Japan on 10 September 2018 listed 121,778 buildings as "total collapsed", with a further 280,926 buildings "half collapsed", and another 699,180 buildings "partially damaged". The earthquake and tsunami also caused extensive and severe structural damage in north-eastern Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, "In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan." Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. An estimated 230,000 automobiles and trucks were damaged or destroyed in the disaster. As of the end of May 2011, residents of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures had requested the deregistration of 15,000 vehicles, meaning that the owners of those vehicles were writing them off as unrepairable or unsalvageable. Weather conditions Low temperature and snowfall were major concerns after the earthquake. Snow arrived minutes before or after the tsunami, depending on locations. In Ishinomaki, the city which suffered the most deaths, a temperature of 0 °C (32 °F) was measured, and it began to snow within a couple of hours of the earthquake. Major snow fell again on 16 March, and intermittently in the coming weeks. 18 March was the coldest of that month, recording −4 to 6 °C (25 to 43 °F) in Sendai. Photos of city ruins covered with snow were featured in various photo albums in international media, including NASA. Waste The tsunami produced huge amounts of debris: estimates of 5 million tonnes of waste were reported by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment. Some of this waste, mostly plastic and styrofoam washed up on the coasts of Canada and the United States in late 2011. Along the west coast of the United States, this increased the amount of litter by a factor of ten and may have transported alien species. Ports All of Japan's ports were briefly shut down after the earthquake, though the ones in Tokyo and southwards soon re-opened. Fifteen ports were located in the disaster zone. The north eastern ports of Hachinohe, Sendai, Ishinomaki and Onahama were destroyed, while the Port of Chiba (which serves the hydrocarbon industry) and Japan's ninth-largest container port at Kashima were also affected, though less severely. The ports at Hitachinaka, Hitachi, Soma, Shiogama, Kesennuma, Ofunato, Kamashi and Miyako were also damaged and closed to ships. All 15 ports reopened to limited ship traffic by 29 March 2011. A total of 319 fishing ports, about 10% of Japan's fishing ports, were damaged in the disaster. Most were restored to operating condition by 18 April 2012. The Port of Tokyo suffered slight damage; the effects of the quake included visible smoke rising from a building in the port with parts of the port areas being flooded, including soil liquefaction in Tokyo Disneyland's parking lot. Dams and water problems The Fujinuma irrigation dam in Sukagawa ruptured, causing flooding and the washing away of five homes. Eight people were missing and four bodies were discovered by the morning. Reportedly, some locals had attempted to repair leaks in the dam before it completely failed. On 12 March 252 dams were inspected and it was discovered that six embankment dams had shallow cracks on their crests. The reservoir at one concrete gravity dam suffered a small non-serious slope failure. All damaged dams are functioning with no problems. Four dams within the quake area were unreachable. In the immediate aftermath of the calamity, at least 1.5 million households were reported to have lost access to water supplies. By 21 March 2011, this number fell to 1.04 million. Electricity According to the Japanese trade ministry, around 4.4 million households served by Tōhoku Electric Power (TEP) in northeastern Japan were left without electricity. Several nuclear and conventional power plants went offline, reducing the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) total capacity by 21 GW. Rolling blackouts began on 14 March due to power shortages caused by the earthquake. TEPCO, which normally provides approximately 40 GW of electricity, announced that it could only provide about 30 GW, because 40% of the electricity used in the greater Tokyo area was supplied by reactors in the Niigata and Fukushima prefectures. The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Dai-ni plants were automatically taken offline when the first earthquake occurred and sustained major damage from the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Rolling blackouts of approximately three hours were experienced throughout April and May while TEPCO scrambled to find a temporary power solution. The blackouts affected Tokyo, Kanagawa, Eastern Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Chiba, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tochigi, and Gunma prefectures. Voluntary reductions in electricity use by consumers in the Kanto area helped reduce the predicted frequency and duration of the blackouts. By 21 March 2011, the number of households in the north without electricity fell to 242,927. Tōhoku Electric Power was not able to provide the Kanto region with additional power because TEP's power plants were also damaged in the earthquake. Kansai Electric Power Company (Kepco) could not share electricity, because its system operated at 60 hertz, whereas TEPCO and TEP operate their systems at 50 hertz; the disparity is due to early industrial and infrastructure development in the 1880s that left Japan without a unified national power grid. Two substations, one in Shizuoka Prefecture and one in Nagano Prefecture, were able to convert between frequencies and transfer electricity from Kansai to Kanto and Tōhoku, but their capacity was limited to 1 GW. With damage to so many power plants, it was feared it might be years before a long-term solution could be found. To help alleviate the shortage, three steel manufacturers in the Kanto region contributed electricity produced by their in-house conventional power stations to TEPCO for distribution to the general public. Sumitomo Metal Industries could produce up to 500 MW, JFE Steel 400 MW, and Nippon Steel 500 MW of electric power. Auto and auto parts makers in Kanto and Tōhoku agreed in May 2011 to operate their factories on Saturdays and Sundays and close on Thursdays and Fridays to help alleviate electricity shortages during the summer of 2011. The public and other companies were also encouraged to conserve electricity in the 2011 summer months (Setsuden). The expected electricity crisis in 2011 summer was successfully prevented thanks to all the setsuden measures. Peak electricity consumption recorded by TEPCO during the period was 49.22GW, which is 10.77GW (18%) lower than the peak consumption in the previous year. Overall electricity consumption during July and August was also 14% less than in the previous year. The peak electricity consumption within TEP's area was 12.46GW during the 2011 summer, 3.11GW (20%) less than the peak consumption in the previous year, and the overall consumption have been reduced by 11% in July with 17% in August compared to previous year. The Japanese government continued to ask the public to conserve electricity until 2016, when it is predicted that the supply will be sufficient to meet demand, thanks to the deepening of the mindset to conserve electricity among corporate and general public, addition of new electricity providers due to the electricity liberalization policy, increased output from renewable energy as well as fossil fuel power stations, as well as sharing of electricity between different electricity companies. Oil, gas and coal A 220,000-barrel (35,000 m3)-per-day oil refinery of Cosmo Oil Company was set on fire by the quake at Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, to the east of Tokyo. It was extinguished after ten days, injuring six people, and destroying storage tanks. Other refineries halted production due to safety checks and power loss. In Sendai, a 145,000-barrel (23,100 m3)-per-day refinery owned by the largest refiner in Japan, JX Nippon Oil & Energy, was also set ablaze by the quake. Workers were evacuated, but tsunami warnings hindered efforts to extinguish the fire until 14 March, when officials planned to do so. An analyst estimates that consumption of various types of oil may increase by as much as 300,000 barrels (48,000 m3) per day (as well as LNG), as back-up power plants burning fossil fuels try to compensate for the loss of 11 GW of Japan's nuclear power capacity. The city-owned plant for importing liquefied natural gas in Sendai was severely damaged, and supplies were halted for at least a month. In addition to refining and storage, several power plants were damaged. These include Sendai #4, New-Sendai #1 and #2, Haranomachi #1 and #2, Hirono #2 and #4 and Hitachinaka #1. Nuclear power plants The Fukushima Daiichi, Fukushima Daini, Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant and Tōkai nuclear power stations, consisting of a total eleven reactors, were automatically shut down following the earthquake. Higashidōri, also on the northeast coast, was already shut down for a periodic inspection. Cooling is needed to remove decay heat after a Generation II reactor has been shut down, and to maintain spent fuel pools. The backup cooling process is powered by emergency diesel generators at the plants and at Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant. At Fukushima Daiichi and Daini, tsunami waves overtopped seawalls and destroyed diesel backup power systems, leading to severe problems at Fukushima Daiichi, including three large explosions and radioactive leakage. Subsequent analysis found that many Japanese nuclear plants, including Fukushima Daiichi, were not adequately protected against tsunamis. Over 200,000 people were evacuated. The discharge of radioactive water in Fukushima was confirmed in later analysis at the three reactors at Fukushima I (Units 1, 2, and 3), which suffered meltdowns and continued to leak coolant water. The aftershock on 7 April caused the loss of external power to Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and Higashidori Nuclear Power Plant but backup generators were functional. Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant lost three of its four external power lines and temporarily lost cooling function in its spent fuel pools for "20 to 80 minutes". A spill of "up to 3.8 litres" of radioactive water also occurred at Onagawa following the aftershock. A report by the IAEA in 2012 found that the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant had remained largely undamaged. In 2013, only two nuclear reactors in Japan had been restarted since the 2011 shutdowns. In February 2019, there were 42 operable reactors in Japan. Of these, only nine reactors in five power plants were operating after having been restarted post-2011. Fukushima meltdowns Japan declared a state of emergency following the failure of the cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the evacuation of nearby residents. Officials from the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported that radiation levels inside the plant were up to 1,000 times normal levels, and that radiation levels outside the plant were up to eight times normal levels. Later, a state of emergency was also declared at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant about 11 km (6.8 mi) south. Experts described the Fukushima disaster was not as bad as the Chernobyl disaster, but worse than the Three Mile Island accident. The discharge of radioactive water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was later detected in tap water. Radioactive iodine was detected in the tap water in Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Niigata, and radioactive caesium in the tap water in Fukushima, Tochigi and Gunma. Radioactive caesium, iodine, and strontium were also detected in the soil in some places in Fukushima. There may be a need to replace the contaminated soil. Many radioactive hotspots were found outside the evacuation zone, including Tokyo. Radioactive contamination of food products were detected in several places in Japan. In 2021, the Japanese cabinet finally approved the dumping of radioactive water in Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean over a course of 30 years, with full support of IAEA. Incidents elsewhere A fire occurred in the turbine section of the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant following the earthquake. The blaze was in a building housing the turbine, which is sited separately from the plant's reactor, and was soon extinguished. The plant was shut down as a precaution. On 13 March the lowest-level state of emergency was declared regarding the Onagawa plant as radioactivity readings temporarily exceeded allowed levels in the area of the plant. Tōhoku Electric Power Co. stated this may have been due to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents but was not from the Onagawa plant itself. As a result of the 7 April aftershock, Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant lost three of four external power lines and lost cooling function for as much as 80 minutes. A spill of a couple of litres of radioactive water occurred at Onagawa. The number 2 reactor at Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant was shut down automatically. On 14 March it was reported that a cooling system pump for this reactor had stopped working; however, the Japan Atomic Power Company stated that there was a second operational pump sustaining the cooling systems, but that two of three diesel generators used to power the cooling system were out of order. Transport Japan's transport network suffered severe disruptions. Many sections of Tōhoku Expressway serving northern Japan were damaged. The expressway did not reopen to general public use until 24 March 2011. All railway services were suspended in Tokyo, with an estimated 20,000 people stranded at major stations across the city. In the hours after the earthquake, some train services were resumed. Most Tokyo area train lines resumed full service by the next day—12 March. Twenty thousand stranded visitors spent the night of 11–12 March inside Tokyo Disneyland. A tsunami flooded Sendai Airport at 15:55 JST, about one hour after the initial quake, causing severe damage. Narita and Haneda Airport both briefly suspended operations after the quake, but suffered little damage and reopened within 24 hours. Eleven airliners bound for Narita were diverted to nearby Yokota Air Base. Various train services around Japan were also canceled, with JR East suspending all services for the rest of the day. Four trains on coastal lines were reported as being out of contact with operators; one, a four-car train on the Senseki Line, was found to have derailed, and its occupants were rescued shortly after 8 am the next morning. Minami-Kesennuma Station on the Kesennuma Line was obliterated save for its platform; 62 of 70 (31 of 35) JR East train lines suffered damage to some degree; in the worst-hit areas, 23 stations on 7 lines were washed away, with damage or loss of track in 680 locations and the 30-km radius around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant unable to be assessed. There were no derailments of Shinkansen bullet train services in and out of Tokyo, but their services were also suspended. The Tokaido Shinkansen resumed limited service late in the day and was back to its normal schedule by the next day, while the Jōetsu and Nagano Shinkansen resumed services late on 12 March. Services on Yamagata Shinkansen resumed with limited numbers of trains on 31 March. Derailments were minimized because of an early warning system that detected the earthquake before it struck. The system automatically stopped all high-speed trains, which minimized the damage. The Tōhoku Shinkansen line was worst hit, with JR East estimating that 1,100 sections of the line, varying from collapsed station roofs to bent power pylons, would need repairs. Services on the Tōhoku Shinkansen partially resumed only in Kantō area on 15 March, with one round-trip service per hour between Tokyo and Nasu-Shiobara, and Tōhoku area service partially resumed on 22 March between Morioka and Shin-Aomori. Services on Akita Shinkansen resumed with limited numbers of trains on 18 March. Service between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori was restored by May, but at lower speeds due to ongoing restoration work; the pre-earthquake timetable was not reinstated until late September. The rolling blackouts brought on by the crises at the nuclear power plants in Fukushima had a profound effect on the rail networks around Tokyo starting on 14 March. Major railways began running trains at 10–20 minute intervals, rather than the usual 3–5 minute intervals, operating some lines only at rush hour and completely shutting down others; notably, the Tōkaidō Main Line, Yokosuka Line, Sōbu Main Line and Chūō-Sōbu Line were all stopped for the day. This led to near-paralysis within the capital, with long lines at train stations and many people unable to come to work or get home. Railway operators gradually increased capacity over the next few days, until running at approximately 80% capacity by 17 March and relieving the worst of the passenger congestion. Telecommunications Cellular and landline phone service suffered major disruptions in the affected area. Immediately after the earthquake cellular communication was jammed across much of Japan due to a surge of network activity. On the day of the quake itself American broadcaster NPR was unable to reach anyone in Sendai with a working phone or access to the Internet. Internet services were largely unaffected in areas where basic infrastructure remained, despite the earthquake having damaged portions of several undersea cable systems landing in the affected regions; these systems were able to reroute around affected segments onto redundant links. Within Japan, only a few websites were initially unreachable. Several Wi-Fi hotspot providers reacted to the quake by providing free access to their networks, and some American telecommunications and VoIP companies such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and VoIP companies such as netTALK and Vonage have offered free calls to (and in some cases, from) Japan for a limited time, as did Germany's Deutsche Telekom. Defense Matsushima Air Field of the Japan Self-Defense Force in Miyagi Prefecture received a tsunami warning, and the airbase public address 'Tanoy' was used to give the warning: 'A tsunami is coming evacuate to the third floor.' Shortly after the warning the airbase was struck by the tsunami, flooding the base. There was no loss of life, although the tsunami resulted in damage to all 18 Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jets of the 21st Fighter Training Squadron. Twelve of the aircraft were scrapped, while the remaining six were slated for repair at a cost of 80 billion yen ($1 billion), exceeding the original cost of the aircraft. After the tsunami, elements of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force put to sea without orders and started rescuing those who had been washed out to sea. Tsunami plans were for the Japanese Self-Defence Force assets to be led, directed, and coordinated by local civic governments. However, the earthquake destroyed town halls (the seat of local municipal government), police, and fire services in many places, so the military not only had to respond to but also command rescues. Cultural properties 754 cultural properties were damaged across nineteen prefectures, including five National Treasures (at Zuigan-ji, Ōsaki Hachiman-gū, Shiramizu Amidadō, and Seihaku-ji); 160 Important Cultural Properties (including at Sendai Tōshō-gū, the Kōdōkan, and Entsū-in, with its Western decorative motifs); 144 Monuments of Japan (including Matsushima, Takata-matsubara, Yūbikan, and the Site of Tagajō); six Groups of Traditional Buildings; and four Important Tangible Folk Cultural Properties. Stone monuments at the UNESCO World Heritage Site: Shrines and Temples of Nikkō were toppled. In Tokyo, there was damage to Koishikawa Kōrakuen, Rikugien, Hamarikyū Onshi Teien, and the walls of Edo Castle. Information on the condition of collections held by museums, libraries and archives is still incomplete. There was no damage to the Historic Monuments and Sites of Hiraizumi in Iwate Prefecture, and the recommendation for their inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in June was seized upon as a symbol of international recognition and recovery. Aftermath The aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami included a humanitarian crisis and a major economic impact. The tsunami resulted in over 340,000 displaced people in the Tōhoku region, and shortages of food, water, shelter, medicine, and fuel for survivors. In response, the Japanese government mobilized the Self-Defence Forces (under Joint Task Force – Tōhoku, led by Lieutenant General Eiji Kimizuka), while many countries sent search and rescue teams to help search for survivors. Aid organizations in Japan and worldwide responded, with the Japanese Red Cross reporting $1 billion in donations. The economic impact included immediate problems, with industrial production suspended in many factories, and the longer term issue of the cost of rebuilding, which has been estimated at ¥10 trillion ($122 billion). In comparison to the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, the East Japan earthquake brought serious damage to an extremely wide range. The aftermath of the twin disasters left Japan's coastal cities and towns with nearly 25 million tons of debris. In Ishinomaki alone, there were 17 trash collection sites 180 metres (590 ft) long and at least 4.5 metres (15 ft) high. An official in the city's government trash disposal department estimated that it would take three years to empty these sites. In April 2015, authorities off the coast of Oregon discovered debris that was thought to be from a boat destroyed during the tsunami. The cargo contained yellowtail amberjack, a species of fish that lives off the coast of Japan, still alive. KGW estimates that more than 1 million tons of debris still remain in the Pacific Ocean. In February 2016, a memorial was inaugurated by two architects for the victims of the disaster, consisting of a 6.5-square-metre structure on a hillside between a temple and a cherry tree in Ishinomaki. Scientific and research response Seismologists anticipated a very large quake would strike in the same place as the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake—in the Sagami Trough, southwest of Tokyo. The Japanese government had tracked plate movements since 1976 in preparation for the so-called Tokai earthquake, predicted to take place in that region. However, occurring as it did 373 km (232 mi) north east of Tokyo, the Tōhoku earthquake came as a surprise to seismologists. While the Japan Trench was known for creating large quakes, it had not been expected to generate quakes above an 8.0 magnitude. The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion set up by the Japanese government then reassessed the long-term risk of trench-type earthquakes around Japan, and it was announced in November 2011 that research on the 869 Sanriku earthquake indicated that a similar earthquake with a magnitude of Mw 8.4–9.0 would take place off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan, on average, every 600 years. Also, a tsunami-earthquake with a tsunami magnitude scales (Mt) between 8.6 and 9.0 (Similar to the 1896 Sanriku earthquake, the Mt for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake was 9.1–9.4) had a 30% chance to occur within 30 years. The quake gave scientists the opportunity to collect a large amount of data to model the seismic events that took place in great detail. This data is expected to be used in a variety of ways, providing unprecedented information about how buildings respond to shaking, and other effects. Gravimetric data from the quake have been used to create a model for increased warning time compared to seismic models, as gravity fields travel faster than seismic waves. Researchers have also analysed the economic effects of this earthquake and have developed models of the nationwide propagation via interfirm supply networks of the shock that originated in the Tōhoku region. After the full extent of the disaster was known, researchers soon launched a project to gather all digital material relating to the disaster into an online searchable archive to form the basis of future research into the events during and after the disaster. The Japan Digital Archive is presented in English and Japanese and is hosted at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some of the first research to come from the archive was a 2014 paper from the Digital Methods Initiative in Amsterdam about patterns of Twitter usage around the time of the disaster. After the 2011 disaster, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction held its World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Tohoku in March 2015, which produced the Sendai Framework document to guide efforts by international development agencies to act before disasters instead of reacting to them after the fact. At this time Japan's Disaster Management Office (Naikakufu Bosai Keikaku) published a bi-lingual guide in Japanese and English, Disaster Management in Japan, to outline the several varieties of natural disaster and the preparations being made for the eventuality of each. In the fall of 2016, Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED; Japanese abbreviation, Bosai Kaken; full name Bousai Kagaku Gijutsu Kenkyusho) launched the online interactive "Disaster Chronology Map for Japan, 416–2013" (map labels in Japanese) to display in visual form the location, disaster time, and date across the islands. The Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project, a scientific expedition conducted in 2012–2013, drilled ocean-floor boreholes through the fault zone of the earthquake and gathered important data about the rupture mechanism and physical properties of the fault that caused the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Ecological research The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami had a great environmental impact on Japan's eastern coast. The rarity and magnitude of the earthquake-tsunami prompted researchers Jotaro Urabe, Takao Suzuki, Tatsuki Nishita, and Wataru Makino to study their immediate ecological impacts on intertidal flat communities at Sendai Bay and the Sanriku Ria coast. Pre- and post-event surveys show a reduction in animal taxon richness and change in taxon composition mainly attributed to the tsunami and its physical impacts. In particular, sessile epibenthic animals and endobenthic animals both decreased in taxon richness. Mobile epibenthic animals, such as hermit crabs, were not as affected. Post-surveys also recorded taxa that were not previously recorded before, suggesting that tsunamis have the potential to introduce species and change taxon composition and local community structure. The long term ecological impacts at Sendai Bay and the greater east coast of Japan require further study. See also Documentaries and commemoration events 3.11: Surviving Japan Pray for Japan Yuzuru Hanyu Notte Stellata Explanatory notes References Further reading Architectural Institute of Japan, ed. (2012). Preliminary Reconnaissance Report of the 2011 Tōhoku-Chiho Taiheiyo-Oki Earthquake. Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering. Vol. 23. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-4-431-54097-7. ISBN 978-4-431-54096-0. Birmingham, Lucy; McNeill, David (2012). Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 256. ISBN 9781137050601. [Council for Central] Disaster Management, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (March 2015). Disaster Management in Japan (in Japanese and English). Parry, Richard Lloyd (2014). Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone. Jonathan Cape. McLaughlin, Levi (2013). "What Have Religious Groups Done After 3.11? Part 1: A Brief Survey of Religious Mobilization after the Great East Japan Earthquake Disasters". Religion Compass. 7 (8): 294–308. doi:10.1111/rec3.12057. McLaughlin, Levi (2013). "What Have Religious Groups Done After 3.11? Part 2: From Religious Mobilization to 'Spiritual Care'". Religion Compass. 7 (8): 309–325. doi:10.1111/rec3.12056. Sources This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under Cc BY-SA 3.0 IGO (license statement/permission). Text taken from Drowning in Plastics – Marine Litter and Plastic Waste Vital Graphics​, United Nations Environment Programme. External links Japan's Killer Quake – NOVA The M9.0 Great Tohoku Earthquake (northeast Honshu, Japan) of March 11, 2011 from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Map of Tsunami Inundation Areas in Japan from ReliefWeb Massive earthquake hits Japan Photos from The Boston Globe Japan Earthquake: before and after aerial and satellite images from ABC News, credited to Post-earthquake images of Japan Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami The New York Times Japan in Crisis: A Series of Interviews with Scholars by Peter Shea at the University of Minnesota Special: The Tōhoku-Oki Earthquake, Japan – free-access scientific papers from Science magazine The East Japan Earthquake Archive (Testimonies of survivors, Photographs and Videos on Google Earth) PreventionWeb Great East Japan Earthquake 2011 Archived 23 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine Video archives 'Remembering 3/11''s channel on YouTube from Fuji News Network Interactive Comparisons of Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami at Beslider.com The International Seismological Centre has a bibliography and/or authoritative data for this event. Map to chronicle all known disasters in Japan from 416 to 2013 (in Japanese) 3/11 – The Tsunami on YouTube Panic as the sea wall fails; tsunami catches on fire

Lists_of_earthquakes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes

Earthquakes are caused by movements within the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle. They range from weak events detectable only by seismometers, to sudden and violent events lasting many minutes which have caused some of the greatest disasters in human history. Below, earthquakes are listed by period, region or country, year, magnitude, cost, fatalities, and number of scientific studies. Lists by time period By century Before 1900 1901–2000 2001–present By decade 2001–2010 2011–2020 2021–2030 By year Lists by location By country By region British Isles Caribbean Levant South Asia Deadliest earthquakes The following is a summary list of earthquakes with over approximately 100,000 deaths. The 893 Ardabil earthquake probably relate to the 893 Dvin earthquake, due to misreading of the Arabic word for Dvin, 'Dabil' as 'Ardabil'. This is regarded as a 'fake earthquake'. Deadliest earthquakes by year Largest earthquakes by magnitude For those which occurred before the development and deployment of seismographs – starting around 1900 – magnitudes are estimated from historical reports of the extent and severity of damage. Pre-instrumental earthquakes List by year List by country/territory This list is a work in progress. Information is likely to be changed. The list refers to current country boundaries rather than those at the date of the earthquake. Please note, multiple countries could have the same earthquake listed, such as the 1906 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake being listed for both Ecuador and Colombia. Unless otherwise noted, magnitudes are reported on the Moment magnitude scale (Mw). Costliest earthquakes This is the top ten major earthquakes by the dollar value of property (public and private) losses directly attributable to the earthquake. Most studied earthquakes The 50 most studied earthquakes according to the International Seismological Centre (ISC), based on a count of scientific papers (mostly in English) that discuss that earthquake. The "Event #" is linked to the ISC Event Bibliography for that event. Modified from figure 2, "The most studied events", at the ISC's Overview of the ISC Event Bibliography. International Seismological Centre. Event Bibliography. Thatcham, United Kingdom. 2018. See also List of deadly earthquakes since 1900 List of historical earthquakes List of megathrust earthquakes List of natural disasters by death toll References External links USGS-ANSS Latest earthquakes around the world Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) IRIS Seismic Monitor, Recent earthquakes around the world SeismoArchives, Seismogram Archives of Significant Earthquakes of the World Recent New Zealand earthquakes Database for the damage of world earthquake, ancient period (3000 BC) to year of 2006—Building Research Institute (Japan) 20 Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900, USGS Historic Worldwide Earthquakes, magnitude 6.0 and greater, sorted by magnitude, USGS (archived 2009)

1964_Alaska_earthquake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake

The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964. Across south-central Alaska, ground fissures, collapsing structures, and tsunamis resulting from the earthquake caused about 131 deaths. Lasting four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the magnitude 9.2–9.3 megathrust earthquake remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America, and the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900. Six hundred miles (970 km) of fault ruptured at once and moved up to 60 ft (18 m), releasing about 500 years of stress buildup. Soil liquefaction, fissures, landslides, and other ground failures caused major structural damage in several communities and much damage to property. Anchorage sustained great destruction or damage to many inadequately earthquake-engineered houses, buildings, and infrastructure (paved streets, sidewalks, water and sewer mains, electrical systems, and other man-made equipment), particularly in the several landslide zones along Knik Arm. Two hundred miles (320 km) southwest, some areas near Kodiak were permanently raised by 30 feet (9 m). Southeast of Anchorage, areas around the head of Turnagain Arm near Girdwood and Portage dropped as much as 8 feet (2.4 m), requiring reconstruction and fill to raise the Seward Highway above the new high tide mark. In Prince William Sound, Port Valdez suffered a massive underwater landslide, resulting in the deaths of 32 people between the collapse of the Valdez city harbor and docks, and inside the ship that was docked there at the time. Nearby, a 27-foot (8.2 m) tsunami destroyed the village of Chenega, killing 23 of the 68 people who lived there. The survivors out-ran the wave, climbing to high ground. Post-quake tsunamis severely affected Whittier, Seward, Kodiak, and other Alaskan communities, as well as people and property in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. Tsunamis also caused damage in Hawaii and Japan. Evidence of motion directly related to the earthquake was also reported from Florida and Texas. Geology On March 27, 1964, at 5:36 p.m. AKST (March 28, at 3:36 a.m. UTC), a fault between the Pacific and North American plates ruptured near College Fjord in Prince William Sound. The epicenter of the earthquake was 12.4 mi (20.0 km) north of Prince William Sound, 78 miles (126 km) east of Anchorage and 40 miles (64 km) west of Valdez. The focus occurred at a depth of approximately 15.5 mi (24.9 km). Ocean floor shifts created large tsunamis (up to 220 feet (67 m) in height), which resulted in many of the deaths and much of the property damage. Large rockslides were also caused, resulting in great property damage. Vertical displacement of up to 38 feet (12 m) occurred, affecting an area of 100,000 square miles (260,000 km2) within Alaska. Studies of ground motion have led to a peak ground acceleration estimate of 0.14–0.18 g. The earthquake was assigned a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Shaking was felt across much of Alaska and parts of western Yukon and British Columbia in Canada. The Alaska earthquake was a subduction zone (megathrust) earthquake, caused by an oceanic plate sinking under a continental plate. The fault responsible was the Aleutian Megathrust, a reverse fault caused by a compressional force. This caused much of the uneven ground which is the result of ground shifted to the opposite elevation. Uplift occurred across 520,000 km2 (200,000 sq mi) from southern Kodiak to Prince William Sound and further east of the sound. The maximum uplift was in Montague Island, where the ground was raised 13–15 m (43–49 ft) relative to sea level. The uplift also affected Kodiak, Sitkalidak, and Sitkinak islands. Subsidence was observed for 285,000 km2 (110,000 sq mi) from north and west of the sound, in Chugach Mountains, most of Kenai Peninsula, and almost all the Kodiak Island group. Tsunami Two types of tsunami were produced by this subduction zone earthquake. There was a tectonic tsunami produced in addition to about 20 smaller and local tsunamis. These smaller tsunamis were produced by submarine and subaerial landslides and were responsible for the majority of the tsunami damage. Tsunami waves were noted in over 20 countries, including Peru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Mexico, and in the continent of Antarctica. The largest tsunami wave was recorded in Shoup Bay, Alaska, with a height of about 220 ft (67 m). Death toll, damage, and casualties As a result of the earthquake, 131 people are believed to have died: Nine died as a result of the earthquake itself and another 122 died from the subsequent tsunamis all over the world. Five died from the tsunami in Oregon, and 12 died from the tsunami in Crescent City, California. Property damage was estimated at $116 million ($0.87 billion in 2023 dollars). Anchorage area Most damage occurred in Anchorage, 75 mi (121 km) northwest of the epicenter. Anchorage was not hit by tsunamis, but downtown Anchorage was heavily damaged, and parts of the city built on sandy bluffs overlying "Bootlegger Cove clay" near Cook Inlet, most notably the Turnagain neighborhood, suffered landslide damage. The neighborhood lost 75 houses in the landslide, and the destroyed area has since been turned into Earthquake Park. The Government Hill school suffered from the Government Hill landslide, leaving it in two jagged, broken pieces. Land overlooking the Ship Creek valley near the Alaska Railroad yards also slid, destroying many acres of buildings and city blocks in downtown Anchorage. Most other areas of the city were only moderately damaged. The 60-foot (18 m) concrete control tower at Anchorage International Airport was not engineered to withstand earthquake activity and collapsed, killing William George Taylor, the Federal Aviation Agency air traffic controller on duty in the tower cab at the time the earthquake began. One house on W. 10th Avenue suffered peripheral damage, but only one block away the recently completed (and still unoccupied) Four Seasons Building on Ninth Avenue collapsed completely, with the concrete elevator shafts sticking up out of the rubble like a seesaw. The hamlets of Girdwood and Portage, located 30 and 40 mi (48 and 64 km) southeast of central Anchorage on the Turnagain Arm, were destroyed by subsidence and subsequent tidal action. Girdwood was relocated inland and Portage was abandoned. About 20 miles (32 km) of the Seward Highway sank below the high-water mark of Turnagain Arm; the highway and its bridges were raised and rebuilt in 1964–66. Elsewhere in Alaska Most coastal towns in the Prince William Sound, Kenai Peninsula, and Kodiak Island areas, especially the major ports of Seward, Whittier and Kodiak were heavily damaged by a combination of seismic activity, subsidence, post-quake tsunamis and/or earthquake-caused fires. Valdez with 32 dead was not totally destroyed, but after three years, the town relocated to higher ground four miles (6.4 km) west of its original site. Some Alaska Native villages, including Chenega and Afognak, were destroyed or damaged. The earthquake caused the ballistic missile detection radar of Clear Air Force Station to go offline for six minutes, the only unscheduled interruption in its operational history. Near Cordova, the Million Dollar Bridge crossing the Copper River also suffered damage, with Span #4 slipping off its pylon and collapsing. The community of Girdwood was also confined to the southern side of the Seward Highway when water rushed into Turnagain Arm and flooded or destroyed any buildings left standing to the north of the highway. Only the ground immediately along the highway and that on the north side of the road dropped, prompting geologists to speculate that Girdwood may rest upon an ancient cliff face covered by thousands of years of sediment and glacial deposits. Canada A 4.5 ft (1.4 m) wave reached Prince Rupert, British Columbia, just south of the Alaska Panhandle, about three hours after the earthquake. The tsunami then reached Tofino, on the exposed west coast of Vancouver Island, and traveled up a fjord to hit Port Alberni twice, washing away 55 homes and damaging 375 others. The towns of Hot Springs Cove, Zeballos, and Amai also saw damage. The damage in British Columbia was estimated at CA$10 million ($96 million in 2023 Canadian dollars or $91 million in 2023 US dollars). Elsewhere Twelve people were killed by the tsunami in or near Crescent City, California, while four children were killed on the Oregon coast at Beverly Beach State Park. Other coastal towns in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Hawaii were damaged. Minor damage to boats occurred as far south as Los Angeles. Effects of the earthquake were even noted as far east as Freeport, Texas, where tide gauges recorded waves similar to seismic surface waves. Seiches were detected in wells in countries around the world, including England, Namibia, and Australia. Aftershocks There were hundreds of aftershocks in the first weeks following the main shock. In the first day alone, eleven major aftershocks were recorded with a magnitude greater than 6.0. Nine more struck over the next three weeks. In all, thousands of aftershocks occurred in the months following the quake, and smaller aftershocks continued to strike the region for more than a year. Recovery efforts Alaska had never experienced a major disaster in a highly populated area before, and had very limited resources for dealing with the effects of such an event. In Anchorage, at the urging of geologist Lidia Selkregg, the City of Anchorage and the Alaska State Housing Authority appointed a team of 40 scientists, including geologists, soil scientists, and engineers, to assess the damage done by the earthquake to the city. The team, called the Engineering and Geological Evaluation Group, was headed by Dr. Ruth A. M. Schmidt, a geology professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The team of scientists came into conflict with local developers and downtown business owners who wanted to immediately rebuild; the scientists wanted to identify future dangers to ensure that rebuilt infrastructure would be safe. The team produced a report on May 8, 1964, just a little more than a month after the earthquake. The United States military, which has a large active presence in Alaska, also stepped in to assist within moments of the end of the quake. The U.S. Army rapidly re-established communications with the lower 48 states, deployed troops to assist the citizens of Anchorage, and dispatched a convoy to Valdez. On the advice of military and civilian leaders, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared all of Alaska a major disaster area the day after the quake. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard deployed ships to isolated coastal communities to assist with immediate needs. Bad weather and poor visibility hampered air rescue and observation efforts the day after the quake, but on Sunday the 29th the situation improved and rescue helicopters and observation aircraft were deployed. A military airlift immediately began shipping relief supplies to Alaska, eventually delivering 2,570,000 pounds (1,170,000 kg) of food and other supplies. Broadcast journalist Genie Chance assisted in recovery and relief efforts, staying on the KENI air waves over Anchorage for more than 24 continuous hours as the voice of calm from her temporary post within the Anchorage Public Safety Building. She was effectively designated as the public safety officer by the city's police chief. Chance provided breaking news of the catastrophic events that continued to develop following the magnitude 9.2 earthquake, and she served as the voice of the public safety office, coordinating response efforts, connecting available resources to needs around the community, disseminating information about shelters and prepared food rations, passing messages of well-being between loved ones, and helping to reunite families. In the longer term, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers led the effort to rebuild roads, clear debris, and establish new townsites for communities that had been completely destroyed, at a cost of $110 million. The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center was formed as a direct response to the disaster. Federal disaster relief funds paid for reconstruction as well as financially supporting the devastated infrastructure of Alaska's government, spending hundreds of millions of dollars that helped keep Alaska financially solvent until the discovery of massive oil deposits at Prudhoe Bay. At the order of the U.S. Defense Department, the Alaska National Guard founded the Alaska Division of Emergency Services to respond to any future disasters. See also 2018 Anchorage earthquake 1965 Rat Islands earthquake List of megathrust earthquakes List of earthquakes in 1964 List of earthquakes in Alaska List of earthquakes in the United States Notes References Specific General External links The Face of Disaster: The Great Alaska Earthquake – US Office of Civil Defense 1964 Good Friday Great Alaskan Earthquake – University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake – United States Geological Survey The Effects of the March 28, 1964 Alaska Tsunami in British Columbia, Canada – George Pararas-Carayannis The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 – Alaska Earthquake Information Center The short film ALASKAN EARTHQUAKE (1966) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive. Anchorage, AK Good Friday Earthquake, Mar 1964 Archived 2014-03-23 at the Wayback Machine – GenDisasters.com Tsunami Anniversary Archived 2014-10-27 at the Wayback Machine – Oregon Field Guide Fifty Years Since the Great Alaska Earthquake: The Role of First Responders in Catastrophic Disaster Planning – 113th United States Congress Tsunami Forecast Model Animation: Alaska 1964 – Pacific Tsunami Warning Center The International Seismological Centre has a bibliography and/or authoritative data for this event.

List_of_winners_of_the_Lenore_Marshall_Poetry_Prize

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_of_the_Lenore_Marshall_Poetry_Prize

The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize is administered by the Academy of American Poets selected by the New Hope Foundation in 1994. Established in 1975, this $25,000 award recognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in the previous year. The Prize was created in 1975 by the New Hope Foundation of Pennsylvania, which was a philanthropic foundation created by Lenore Marshall and her husband, James Marshall, to "support the arts and the cause of world peace"; Lenore Marshall, a poet, novelist, editor, and peace activist, had died in 1971. Receipt of the prize has been among the distinctions noted by the Library of Congress when the Poet Laureate of the United States is named. The Prize was initially administered by the Saturday Review magazine. Following the folding of Saturday Review, the Prize was administered by The Nation magazine. In 1995, administration of the Prize became the responsibility of the Academy; the Prize has a permanent endowment. The Prize is still sponsored by The Nation, which usually publishes an article about the poetry of each year's finalists and winner. The cash value of the prize is currently $25,000. Winners == References ==

Cid_Corman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cid_Corman

Cid (Sidney) Corman (June 29, 1924 – March 12, 2004) was an American poet, translator and editor, most notably of Origin, who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century. Life Corman was born in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood and grew up nearby in the Dorchester neighborhood. His parents were both from the Ukraine. From an early age he was an avid reader and showed an aptitude for drawing and calligraphy. He attended Boston Latin School and in 1941 he entered Tufts University, where he achieved Phi Beta Kappa honours and wrote his first poems. He was excused from service in World War II for medical reasons and graduated in 1945. Corman studied for his Master's degree at the University of Michigan, where he won the Hopwood poetry award, but dropped out two credits short of completion. After a brief stint at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he spent some time travelling around the United States, returning to Boston in 1948. Career Early work Corman's first book, Subluna, was privately printed in 1944. He ran poetry events in public libraries and, with the help of his high-school friend Nat Hentoff, he started the country's first poetry radio program. In 1952, Corman wrote: "I initiated my weekly broadcasts, known as This Is Poetry, from WMEX (1510 kc.) in Boston. The program has been usually a fifteen-minute reading of modern verse on Saturday evenings at seven thirty; however, I have taken some liberties and have read from Moby Dick and from stories by Dylan Thomas, Robert Creeley, and Joyce." This program featured readings by Robert Creeley, Stephen Spender, Theodore Roethke and many other Boston-based and visiting poets. He also spent some time at the Yaddo artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs. It was about this time that Corman changed his name from Sydney Corman to the simpler "Cid." As Corman indicated in conversation, this name change—similar to Walt Whitman's assumption of Walt over Walter—signaled his beginnings as a poet for the common man. During this period, Corman was writing prolifically and published in excess of 500 poems in about 100 magazines by 1954. He considered this to be a kind of apprenticeship, and none of these poems were ever published in book form. Origin and Europe In 1951, Corman began Origin in response to the failure of a magazine that Creeley had planned. The magazine typically featured one writer per issue and ran, with breaks, until the mid-1980s. Poets featured included Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Larry Eigner, Denise Levertov, William Bronk, Theodore Enslin, Charles Olson, Louis Zukofsky, Clive Faust (Australian Poet), Gary Snyder, Lorine Niedecker, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Paul Blackburn and Frank Samperi. The magazine also led to the establishment of Origin Press, which published books by a similar range of poets as well as by Corman himself and which remains currently active. In 1954, Corman won a Fulbright Fellowship grant (with an endorsement from Marianne Moore) and moved to France, where he studied for a time at the Sorbonne. He then moved to Italy to teach English in a small town called Matera. By this time, Corman had published a number of small books, but his Italian experiences were to provide the materials for his first major work, Sun Rock Man (1962). He also experimented with oral poetry, recording improvised poems on tape. These tapes were later to influence the talk-poems of David Antin, one of the key developments in the emergence of performance poetry. At this time he produced the first English translations of Paul Celan, even though he didn't have the poet's approval. Japan In 1958, Corman got a teaching job in Kyoto through the auspices of Will Petersen or, according to one account, poet Gary Snyder. Here he continued to write and to run Origin and in 1959 he published Snyder's first book, Riprap. He remained in Japan until 1960, when he returned to the States for two years. Back in Japan he married Konishi Shizumi, a Japanese TV news editor. Corman began to translate Japanese poetry, particularly work by Bashō and Kusano Shimpei. The Cormans spent the years 1980 to 1982 in Boston, where they unsuccessfully tried to establish a number of small businesses. They returned to Kyoto, where they remained, running CC's Coffee Shop in Kyoto, "offering poetry and western-style patisserie". Later work Corman has been associated with the Beats, Black Mountain poets and Objectivists, mainly through his championing as an editor, publisher and critic. However, he remained independent of all groups and fashions throughout his career. Michael Carlson, who contributed to Origins and corresponded with Corman starting in the 1980s, described Corman's correspondence this way: "In the days before email his words came by return post, aerogrammes densely typed to take advantage of every inch of space, or postcards printed in his fine hand. They were encouraging, gossipy, and always challenging; he expected everyone to match his commitment to poetry as a way of life. But they also digressed into other shared enthusiasms: in my case his love of baseball and sumo wrestling, and often into the difficulties of making a living in expensive Japan." He was a prolific poet until his final illness, publishing more than 100 books and pamphlets. In 1990, he published the first two volumes of poems entitled, OF, running to some 1500 poems. These are mostly new works, not a selection of previously published poems. Volume 3, with a further 750 poems appeared in 1998. Volumes 4 and 5 were published as a single book in 2015 to complete the work. Several collections of wide-ranging essays have been published. His translations (or co-translations) include Bashō's Back Roads to Far Towns, Things by Francis Ponge, poems by Paul Celan and collections of haiku. Cid Corman did not speak, read, or write Japanese, even though his co-translation with Susumu Kamaike of Bashō's Oku No Hosomichi (see above) is considered to be one of the most accurate in tone in the English language. Corman also felt himself able to translate from classical Chinese without so much as a minimal understanding of the language. One of Corman's last appearances in the United States was at the 2003 centennial symposium and celebration in southern Wisconsin that honored his friend and fellow poet, Lorine Niedecker. At the time, Corman spoke warmly about his connection to the Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin poet (playing the only known audio tape of Niedecker reading from her works). Niedecker had died in 1970, shortly after Corman had visited her. As he told friends and admirers during the 2003 gathering, Corman had not returned to the Black Hawk Island haunts of Niedecker since that first (and only) visit with Niedecker. He died in Kyoto, Japan on March 12, 2004 after being hospitalized for a cardiac condition since January 2004. References External links Thirty-one poems CID CORMAN & ORIGIN PRESS A large collection of Cid Corman's manuscripts is held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin Additional papers (1942-76) are held in the Special Collections library at Kent State University Additional papers (1962-1964) are held in the Special Collections library at Washington University in St. Louis Independent Voices Complete digital archive of all series of Origin.

Milk_and_Honey_(poetry_collection)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_Honey_(poetry_collection)

Milk and Honey (stylized in all lowercase as "milk and honey") is a collection of both abstract fiction and non-fiction poetry and prose by Indian-Canadian poet Rupi Kaur. The collection's themes feature aspects of survival, feminism and relationships, and is divided into four sections, with each section serving a different purpose and relevance to Kaur's personal experiences. The sections further explore the themes of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity, accompanied by simple line art illustrations. These sections are titled "the hurting", "the loving", "the breaking" and "the healing". Kaur has cited her cultural background as an inspiration for the book's style, as well as an attempt to make the book more accessible to a wide demographic or readers. The book's simplistic style and themes have drawn forth some negative criticism and alleged rumours about Kaur herself. Critics have sometimes referred to Kaur's work as "Instapoetry" due to Kaur's usage of social media platform Instagram to market her poems and illustrations. Background Kaur was born in India and later moved to Canada at the age of four. Her household continued to center the values of the Punjabi-Sikhs people as they spoke only the Punjabi language at home. After arriving in Canada, at the age of 5, Kaur began reading, drawing, writing poetry, and painting because she could not speak English and struggled to make friends. Kaur eventually learned English by the fourth grade and credited her love for spoken word poetry to community open microphone nights. As she got older, she continued reciting her poems at open mic events and gathered a group of followers who showed interest in Kaur expanding her poems in the book. Contents Milk and Honey is divided into 4 themed chapters: "the hurting," (30 poems), "the loving," (32 poems), "the breaking," (60 poems), and "the healing," (57 poems). Some of the singular poems, which follow the theme of the overall section, have drawings by Kaur. This collection uses sexual terminology, accessible language, and discusses personal trauma. The book itself is recommended for ages 18+. Kaur jumps between first and second-person pronouns, and breaks the conventional rules of traditional poetry to honor Punjabi, the language of her birthplace. She writes with lowercase letters and uses little punctuation similar to the writing features in Punjabi. The first chapter, "the hurting," is about the author's experience with sexual assault, abuse, and family issues. The next chapter, "the loving," has a lighter tone as the topic overall is about positive experiences. The poems have been described by critics as sweet, and being filled with the emotions of falling in love with love and life. "The breaking" brings the reader back to a dark place in the author's life. These poems relate to Kaur's sad feeling after a breakup. While speaking about the effects after love is gone, Kaur discusses a break-up to-do list. The last chapter, "the healing," is an attempt to comfort and show women that they should embrace who they are and that they are valuable, no matter what they had to endure. This section also speaks to embracing one's emotions as they are important to improving one's internal strength and abilities. Publication Milk and Honey was published on November 4, 2014. The poetry collection has sold over 3 million times. As of June 7, 2020, it has been listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 165 weeks, and has helped Kaur to amass a large following on social media. Kaur was not able to find a publisher, so, having learned how to design and edit in college, she decided to self-publish Milk and Honey. The book was later re-released under Andrews McMeel Publishing. It has also been translated into 25 languages. Reception Kaur's poetry has been described as easy and simple to read, not intellectually demanding, 'pablum' and it is credited with changing people's views of poetry, because "she tells it how it is", according to Rob Walker of The Guardian. The book received criticism regarding its reliance on the style of "InstaPoetry", with Bustle stating that Kaur and the book have "by far borne the brunt of these critiques. For every positive review of Kaur's work, there is at least one scathing critique, ranging from actual engagement with her writing to cheap shots claiming she had 'commodified [sic] her South Asian heritage'". Critic John Maher of Publishers Weekly has described Kaur as a "polarizing figure" for literacy, publishing, and media, who might be able to make poems sell again. Maher stated that while a 2015 survey reported a drop in poetry reading between 1992 and 2012, poetry sales figures doubled in 2017, two years after Kaur published Milk and Honey. Chiara Giovanni critiqued Kaur's ability to be a representative for female empowerment, stating, "'there is something deeply uncomfortable about the self-appointed spokesperson of South Asian womanhood being a privileged young woman from the West'". The book also received criticism over claims that Kaur's work plagiarized that of Nayyirah Waheed. Critics cited similarities between the two poets' writing style of short poems with jagged punctuation and line breaks, and for the same imagery. Censorship in the United States In February 2022, Milk and Honey was listed as #47 on a list of 50 books that "conservative" parents wanted banned from public schools in the state of Texas. Kaur called the ban "disturbing" during an interview with CTV News. The book was banned in multiple school districts in Missouri in 2023. PEN America listed the book as one of the 11 most banned books in the 2022–2023 school year because it explores issues of sexual assault and violence. About the bans, Kaur wrote on Instagram, "I remember sitting in my school library in high school, turning to books about sexual assault because I didn't have anyone else to turn to. this is the reality for many students." == References ==

Key_West

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West

Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it constitutes the City of Key West. The island of Key West is about 4 miles (6 kilometers) long and 1 mile (2 km) wide, with a total land area of 4.2 square miles (11 km2). Within Florida, it is 130 miles (210 km) southwest of Miami by air, about 165 miles (266 km) by road. Key West is approximately 95 miles (153 km) north of Cuba at their closest points, and 106 miles (171 km) north-northeast of Havana. The city of Key West is the county seat of Monroe County, which includes a majority of the Florida Keys and part of the Everglades. The total land area of the city is 5.6 square miles (14.5 km2). The population within the city limits was 26,444 at the 2020 census. The official city motto is "One Human Family". Key West is the southernmost city in the contiguous United States and the westernmost island connected by highway in the Florida Keys. Duval Street, its main street, is 1.1 miles (1.8 km) in length in its 14-block-long crossing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. Key West is the southern terminus of U.S. Route 1 – the longest north–south road in the United States, as well as State Road A1A, the East Coast Greenway and, before 1935, the Florida East Coast Railway. Key West is a port of call for passenger cruise ships. The Key West International Airport provides airline service. Naval Air Station Key West is an important year-round training site for naval aviation due to the tropical weather, which is also the reason Key West was chosen as the site of President Harry S. Truman's Winter White House. The central business district is located along Duval Street and includes much of the northwestern corner of the island. History Precolonial and colonial times At various times before the 19th century, people who were related or subject to the Calusa and the Tequesta inhabited Key West. The last Native American residents of Key West were Calusa refugees who were taken to Cuba when Florida was transferred from Spain to Great Britain in 1763. Cayo Hueso (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaʝo ˈweso]) is the original Spanish name for the island of Key West. It literally means "bone cay", cay referring to a low island or reef. It is said that the island was littered with the remains (bones) of prior native inhabitants, who used the isle as a communal graveyard. This island was the westernmost Key with a reliable supply of water. Between 1763, when Great Britain took control of Florida from Spain, and 1821, when the United States took possession of Florida from Spain, there were few or no permanent inhabitants anywhere in the Florida Keys. Cubans and Bahamians regularly visited the Keys, the Cubans primarily to fish, while the Bahamians fished, caught turtles, cut hardwood timber, and salvaged wrecks. Smugglers and privateers also used the Keys for concealment. In 1766 the British governor of East Florida recommended that a post be set up on Key West to improve control of the area, but nothing came of it. During both the British and Spanish periods no nation exercised de facto control. The Bahamians apparently set up camps in the Keys that were occupied for months at a time, and there were rumors of permanent settlements in the Keys by 1806 or 1807, but the locations are not known. Fishermen from New England started visiting the Keys after the end of the War of 1812, and may have briefly settled on Key Vaca in 1818. Ownership claims In 1815, the Spanish governor of Cuba in Havana deeded the island of Key West to Juan Pablo Salas, an officer of the Royal Spanish Navy Artillery posted in Saint Augustine, Florida. After Florida was transferred to the United States in 1821, Salas was so eager to sell the island that he sold it twice – first for a sloop valued at $575 to a General John Geddes, a former governor of South Carolina, and then to a U.S. businessman John W. Simonton, during a meeting in a Havana café on January 19, 1822, for the equivalent of $2,000 in pesos in 1821. Geddes tried in vain to secure his rights to the property before Simonton who, with the aid of some influential friends in Washington, was able to gain clear title to the island. Simonton had wide-ranging business interests in Mobile, Alabama. He bought the island because a friend, John Whitehead, had drawn his attention to the opportunities presented by the island's strategic location. John Whitehead had been stranded in Key West after a shipwreck in 1819 and he had been impressed by the potential offered by the deep harbor of the island. The island was indeed considered the "Gibraltar of the West" because of its strategic location on the 90-mile (140 km)–wide deep shipping lane, the Straits of Florida, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. On March 25, 1822, Lt. Commander Matthew C. Perry sailed the schooner USS Shark to Key West and planted the U.S. flag, claiming the Keys as United States property. No protests were made over the American claim on Key West, so the Florida Keys became the de facto property of the United States. After claiming the Florida Keys for the United States, Perry renamed Cayo Hueso (Key West) to Thompson's Island for Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson, and the harbor Port Rodgers in honor of War of 1812 hero and President of the Navy Supervisors Board John Rodgers. In 1823, Commodore David Porter of the United States Navy West Indies Anti-Pirate Squadron took charge of Key West, which he ruled as military dictator under martial law. The United States Navy gave Porter the mission of countering piracy and the slave trade in the Key West area. First developers Soon after his purchase, John Simonton subdivided the island into plots and sold three undivided quarters of each plot to: John Mountain and U.S. Consul John Warner, who quickly resold their quarter to Pardon C. Greene, who took up residence on the island. Greene is the only one of the four "founding fathers" to establish himself permanently on the island, where he became quite prominent as head of P.C. Greene and Company. He was a member of the city council and also served briefly as mayor. He died in 1838 at the age of 57. John Whitehead, his friend who had advised him to buy Key West. John Whitehead lived in Key West for only eight years. He became a partner in the firm of P.C. Greene and Company from 1824 to 1827. A lifelong bachelor, he left the island for good in 1832. He came back only once, during the Civil War in 1861, and died the next year. John Fleeming (nowadays spelled Fleming). John W.C. Fleeming was English-born and was active in mercantile business in Mobile, Alabama, where he befriended John Simonton. Fleeming spent only a few months in Key West in 1822 and left for Massachusetts, where he married. He returned to Key West in 1832 with the intention of developing salt manufacturing on the island but died the same year at the age of 51. Simonton spent the winter in Key West and the summer in Washington, where he lobbied hard for the development of the island and to establish a naval base on the island, both to take advantage of the island's strategic location and to bring law and order to the town. He died in 1854. The names of the four "founding fathers" of modern Key West were given to main arteries of the island when it was first platted in 1829 by William Adee Whitehead, John Whitehead's younger brother. That first plat and the names used remained mostly intact and are still in use today. Duval Street, the island's main street, is named after Florida's first territorial governor, William Pope Duval, who served between 1822 and 1834 as the longest-serving governor in Florida's U.S. history. William Whitehead became chief editorial writer for the Enquirer, a local newspaper, in 1834. He preserved copies of his newspaper as well as copies from the Key West Gazette, its predecessor. He later sent those copies to the Monroe County clerk for preservation, which gives us a view of life in Key West in the early days (1820–1840). In the 1830s, Key West was the richest city per capita in the United States. In 1846, the city suffered severely from the 1846 Havana hurricane. In 1852 the first Catholic Church, St. Mary's Star-Of-The-Sea, was built. The year 1864 became a landmark for the church in South Florida when five Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary arrived from Montreal, Canada, and established the first Catholic school in South Florida. At the time it was called Convent of Mary Immaculate. The school is still operating today and is now known as Mary Immaculate Star of the Sea School. American Civil War and late 19th century During the American Civil War, while Florida seceded and joined the Confederate States of America, Key West remained in U.S. Union hands because of the naval base. Most locals were sympathetic to the Confederacy, however, and many flew Confederate flags over their homes. However, Key West was also home to a large free black population. This population grew during the war as more enslaved black people fled from their masters and came under the relative safety of the Union garrison there. Fort Zachary Taylor, constructed from 1845 to 1866, was an important Key West outpost during the Civil War. Construction began in 1861 on two other forts, East and West Martello Towers, which served as side armories and batteries for the larger fort. When completed, they were connected to Fort Taylor by railroad tracks for movement of munitions. Early in 1864, 900 men from the 2nd United States Colored Troops (USCT) arrived in Key West as replacements for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Many of these men would see action in southern Florida and the 2nd USCT would become "one of the most active" black regiments in Florida. Fort Jefferson, located about 68 miles (109 km) from Key West on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, served after the Civil War as the prison for Samuel A. Mudd, convicted of conspiracy for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. In the 19th century, major industries included wrecking, fishing, turtling, and salt manufacturing. From 1830 to 1861, Key West was a major center of U.S. salt production, harvesting the commodity from the sea (via receding tidal pools) rather than from salt mines. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Union troops shut down the salt industry after Confederate sympathizers smuggled the product into the South. Salt production resumed at the end of the war, but the industry was destroyed by an 1876 hurricane and never recovered, in part because of new salt mines on the mainland. During the Ten Years' War (an unsuccessful Cuban war for independence in the 1860s and 1870s), many Cubans sought refuge in Key West. Several cigar factories relocated to the city from Cuba, and Key West quickly became a major producer of cigars. A fire on April 1, 1886, that started at a coffee shop next to the San Carlos Institute and spread out of control, destroyed 18 cigar factories and 614 houses and government warehouses. Some factory owners chose not to rebuild and instead moved their operations to the new community of Ybor City in Tampa, leading to a slow decline in the cigar industry in Key West. Still, Key West remained the largest and wealthiest city in Florida at the end of the 1880s. USS Maine sailed from Key West on her fateful visit to Havana, where she blew up and sank in Havana Harbor, igniting the Spanish–American War. Crewmen from the ship are buried in Key West, and the Navy investigation into the blast occurred at the Key West Customs House. 20th century In October 1909, Key West was devastated by the 1909 Florida Keys hurricane. Further damage was suffered the following year in the 1910 Cuba hurricane. Key West was relatively isolated until 1912, when it was connected to the Florida mainland via the Overseas Railway extension of Henry M. Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway (FEC). Flagler created a landfill at Trumbo Point for his railyards. The 1919 Florida Keys hurricane caused catastrophic damage to the area. On December 25, 1921, Manuel Cabeza was lynched by members of the Ku Klux Klan for living with a black woman. Pan American Airlines was founded in Key West, originally to fly visitors to Havana, in 1926. The airline contracted with the United States Postal Service in 1927 to deliver mail to and from Cuba and the United States. The mail route was known as the Key West, Florida – Havana Mail Route. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed much of the Overseas Railway and killed hundreds of residents, including around 400 World War I veterans who were living in camps and working on federal road and mosquito-control projects in the Middle Keys. The FEC could not afford to restore the railroad. The U.S. government then rebuilt the rail route as an automobile highway, completed in 1938, built atop many of the footings of the railroad. It became an extension of U.S. Route 1. The portion of U.S. 1 through the Keys is called the Overseas Highway. Franklin Roosevelt toured the road in 1939. During World War II, more than 14,000 ships came through the island's harbor. The population, because of an influx of soldiers, sailors, laborers, and tourists, sometimes doubled or even tripled at times during the war. Starting in 1946, US President Harry S. Truman established a working vacation home in Key West, the Harry S. Truman Little White House, where he would spend 175 days of his presidency. In 1948, Key West suffered damage from two hurricanes within as many months, from the September 1948 Florida hurricane then the 1948 Miami hurricane. Prior to the Cuban revolution of 1959, there were regular ferry and airplane services between Key West and Havana. John F. Kennedy was to use "90 miles from Cuba" extensively in his speeches against Fidel Castro. Kennedy himself visited Key West a month after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1982, the city of Key West briefly asserted independence as the Conch Republic as a protest over a United States Border Patrol blockade. This blockade was set up on US 1, where the northern end of the Overseas Highway meets the mainland at Florida City. A traffic jam of 17 miles (27 km) ensued while the Border Patrol stopped every car leaving the Keys, supposedly searching for illegal immigrants attempting to enter the mainland United States. This paralyzed the Florida Keys, which rely heavily on the tourism industry. Flags, T-shirts and other merchandise representing the Conch Republic are still popular souvenirs for visitors to Key West, and the Conch Republic Independence Celebration—including parades and parties—is celebrated annually, on April 23. In 1998, Hurricane Georges damaged the city. In 2017, Hurricane Irma caused substantial damage with wind and flooding, killing three people. Geography Key West is an island located at 24°33′55″N 81°46′33″W in the Straits of Florida. The island is about 4 miles (6 km) long and 1 mile (2 km) wide, with a total land area of 4.2 square miles (10.9 km2; 2,688.0 acres). The average elevation above sea level is about 8 feet (2.4 m) and the maximum elevation is about 18 feet (5.5 m), within a 1-acre (0-hectare) area known as Solares Hill. The city of Key West is the southernmost city in the contiguous United States, and the island is the westernmost island connected by highway in the Florida Keys. The city boundaries include the island of Key West and several nearby islands, as well as the section of Stock Island north of U.S. Route 1, on the adjacent key to the east. The total land area of the city is 5.6 square miles (15 km2), with an additional 1.6 square miles (4.1 km2) of surrounding water within the city limits. Sigsbee Park—originally known as Dredgers Key—and Fleming Key, both located to the north, and Sunset Key located to the west are all included in the city boundaries. Both Fleming Key and Sigsbee Park are part of Naval Air Station Key West and are inaccessible to the general public. In the late 1950s, many of the large salt ponds on the eastern side of the island were filled in. The new section on the eastern side is called New Town, which contains shopping centers, retail malls, residential areas, schools, ball parks, and Key West International Airport. Key West and most of the rest of the Florida Keys are on the dividing line between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The two bodies have different currents, with the calmer and warmer Gulf of Mexico being characterized by great clumps of seagrass. The shallow passage known as Hawk Channel lies directly south of the island and is conducive to the exchange of Gulf waters to the Atlantic via tidal currents. The area where the two bodies merge between Key West and Cuba is called the Straits of Florida. The warmest ocean waters anywhere on the United States mainland are found in the Florida Keys in winter, with sea surface temperatures averaging in the 75–77 °F (24–25 °C) range in December through February. Duval Street is the main street in Key West and is 1.1 miles (1.8 km) in length in its 14-block-long crossing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. Key West is closer to Havana (about 106 miles or 171 kilometers by air or sea) than it is to Miami (130 miles or 210 kilometers by air or 165 miles or 266 kilometers by road). Key West is the usual endpoint for marathon swims from Cuba, including Diana Nyad's 2013 record-setting swim as the first completed without a shark cage or fins and Susie Maroney's 1997 swim from within a shark cage. Notable places Old Town The earliest Key West neighborhoods, on the western part of the island, are broadly known as Old Town. The Key West Historic District includes the major tourist destinations of the island, including Mallory Square, Duval Street, the Truman Annex, and Fort Zachary Taylor. Old Town is where the classic bungalows and guest mansions are found. Bahama Village, southwest of Whitehead Street, features houses, churches, and sites related to its Afro-Bahamian history. The Meadows, lying northeast of the White Street Gallery District, is exclusively residential. Many of the structures in Old Town date from 1886 to 1912. The basic features that distinguish the local architecture include wood-frame construction of one- to two-and-a-half-story structures set on foundation piers about three feet (one meter) above the ground. Exterior characteristics of the buildings are peaked metal roofs, horizontal wood siding, gingerbread trim, pastel shades of paint, side-hinged louvered shutters, covered porches (or balconies, galleries, or verandas) along the fronts of the structures, and wood lattice screens covering the area elevated by the piers. Some antebellum structures survive, including the Oldest (or Cussans-Watlington) House (1829–1836) and the John Huling Geiger House (1846–1849), now preserved as the Audubon House and Tropical Gardens. Fortifications such as Fort Zachary Taylor, the East Martello Tower, and the West Martello Tower, helped ensure that Key West would remain in Union control throughout the Civil War. Another landmark built by the federal government is the Key West Lighthouse, now a museum. Two of the most notable buildings in Old Town, occupied by prominent 20th-century residents, are the Ernest Hemingway House, where the writer lived from 1931 to 1939, and the Harry S. Truman Little White House, where the president spent 175 days of his time in office. Additionally, the residences of some historical Key West families are recognized on the National Register of Historic Places as important landmarks of history and culture, including the Porter House on Caroline Street and the Gato House on Virginia Street. Several historical residences of the Curry family remain extant, including the Benjamin Curry House, built by the brother of Florida's first millionaire, William Curry, as well as the Southernmost House and the Fogarty Mansion, built by the children of William Curry—his daughter Florida and son Charles, respectively. In addition to architecture, Old Town includes the Key West Cemetery, founded in 1847, containing above-ground tombs, notable epitaphs, and a plot where some of the dead from the 1898 explosion of USS Maine are buried. Casa Marina The Casa Marina area takes its name from the Casa Marina Hotel, opened in 1921, the neighborhood's most conspicuous landmark. The Reynolds Street Pier, Higgs Beach, the West Martello Tower, the White Street Pier, and Rest Beach line the waterfront. Southernmost point in the United States One of the most popular attractions on the island is a concrete replica of a buoy at the corner of South and Whitehead Streets that claims to be the southernmost point in the contiguous United States. The point was originally marked with a basic sign. The city of Key West erected the current monument in 1983. The monument was repainted after damage by Hurricane Irma in 2017, and is the most often photographed tourist site in the Florida Keys. Although the monument is labeled "Southernmost point continental U.S.A.", the actual southernmost point of Key West is Whitehead Spit, which is on the Truman Annex property just west of the buoy. The spit has no marker since it is on U.S. Navy land that cannot be entered by civilian tourists. The private property directly to the east of the buoy, and the beach areas of Truman Annex and Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, also lie farther south than the buoy. The southernmost point of the contiguous United States is Ballast Key, a privately owned island just south and west of Key West. The southernmost location that the public can visit is the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor park. The monument states "90 Miles to Cuba", although Key West and Cuba are actually about 95 statute miles (153 kilometers; 83 nautical miles) apart at their closest points. Note that the distance from the monument to Havana is, however, about 90 nautical miles (104 statute miles; 167 kilometers). Key West Library The first public library was officially established in 1853, which was housed in the then-Masonic Temple on Simonston Street, near where the federal courthouse is today. At the time, the first library president was James Lock, with the librarian being William Delaney. At the time, the library collected held 1,200 volumes for residents to access. In 1919, a hurricane destroyed the library. Key West residents moved the library to various locations across the island. The county took over and finally found a permanent location. The library's new location was found in 1959. It was built on Fleming Street, where it is still found today. "Spoonbill" In 1961, the Monroe County Library System sponsored a bookmobile, "Spoonbill", to service the entire Keys. By 1962, "Spoonbill" was making stops in ten different Keys, over one hundred miles (160 km), from Key Largo in the North to Key West in the South. Mrs. Barbara Banning was the driver-librarian, driving over 25,000 miles (40,000 km) in the first year and a half, circulating more than 28,000 titles. On Mondays, the "Spoonbill" would be loaded with books in Key West and Banning and her assistant, or volunteer, would drive up to Key Largo, Tavernier, and Islamorada, stopping for an hour in each location; Wednesdays the "Spoonbill" made stops in Marathon, Big Pine, Little Torch, and Summerland. On Thursdays, the "Spoonbill" would only travel twenty miles (32 km) from home base, making stops in Bay Point, Big Coppitt, and Gulf Rest. At Bay Point there was a popular children's story hour, servicing roughly three hundred school-age children and led by former kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Ernest Hense. Collection The Key West Library has a collection of 70,000 items, including a letter from singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. Dated from October 22, 1984, the letter expresses gratitude for the library in giving inspiration for the songs he would eventually write, and for the air conditioning. As of 2022, the Key West Library is a part of the Monroe County Public Library System. Notable residences Little White House Several U.S. presidents have visited Key West with the first being Ulysses S. Grant in 1880, followed by Grover Cleveland in 1889, and William Howard Taft in 1912. Taft was the first president to use the first officer's quarters that would later be known as the Little White House. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the Florida Keys many times, beginning in 1917. Harry S. Truman visited Key West for a total of 175 days on 11 visits during his presidency and visited five times after he left office. His first visit was in 1946. The Little White House and Truman Annex take their names from his frequent and well-documented visits. The residence is also known as the Winter White House as Truman stayed there mostly in the winter months, and used it for official business such as the Truman Doctrine. Dwight D. Eisenhower stayed at the Little White House following a heart attack in 1955. John F. Kennedy visited Key West in March 1961, and in November 1962, a month after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Jimmy Carter visited the Little White House twice with his family after he had left office, in 1996 and 2007. Ernest Hemingway house Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote part of A Farewell to Arms while living above the showroom of a Key West Ford dealership at 314 Simonton Street while awaiting delivery of a Ford Model A roadster purchased by the uncle of his wife Pauline in 1928. Hardware store owner Charles Thompson introduced him to deep-sea fishing. Among the group who went fishing was Joe Russell (also known as Sloppy Joe). Some scholars believe Russell was the model for Freddy in To Have and Have Not. The group had nicknames for each other, and Hemingway wound up with "Papa". Pauline's rich uncle Gus Pfeiffer bought the 907 Whitehead Street house in 1931 as a wedding present. The Hemingways installed a swimming pool for $20,000 in 1937–38 (equivalent to about $339,639 in 2023). The unexpectedly high cost prompted Hemingway to put a penny in the wet cement of the patio, saying, "Here, take the last penny I've got!" The penny is at the north end of the pool. During his stay he wrote or worked on Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. He used Depression-era Key West as one of the locations in To Have and Have Not—his only novel with scenes that occur in the United States. The six- or seven-toed polydactyl cats descended from Hemingway's original pet "Snowball" still live on the grounds and are cared for at the Hemingway House, despite complaints by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that they are not kept free from visitor contact. The Key West City Commission has exempted the house from a law prohibiting more than four domestic animals per household. Pauline and Hemingway divorced in 1939; Hemingway only occasionally visited when returning from Havana until his suicide in 1961. Tennessee Williams house Tennessee Williams first became a regular visitor to Key West in 1941 and is said to have written the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire while staying in 1947 at the La Concha Hotel. He bought a permanent house in 1949 and listed Key West as his primary residence until his death in 1983. In contrast to Hemingway's grand house in Old Town, the Williams home at 1431 Duncan Street in the "unfashionable" New Town neighborhood is a very modest bungalow. The house is privately owned and not open to the public. The Academy Award-winning film version of his play The Rose Tattoo was shot on the island in 1956. The Tennessee Williams Theatre is located on the campus of Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island. Even though Hemingway and Williams lived in Key West at the same time, they reportedly met only once—at Hemingway's home in Cuba, Finca Vigía. Port of Key West The first cruise ship to adopt the port was the Sunward in 1969. It docked at Pier B, which was owned at that time by the U.S. Navy. In 1984, the city opened a cruise terminal at Mallory Square. The decision was met with opponents who claimed that it would disrupt the tradition of watching the sunset at Mallory Square. Today, the Port of Key West includes Key West Bight, Garrison Bight at City Marina, as well as three docks that could be used by cruise ships. Climate Key West has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw, similar to the Caribbean islands). Like most localities near the edge of the tropics, Key West has a relatively large range in monthly mean temperatures between the coldest month (January) and the hottest month (July) – with the annual range of monthly mean temperatures around 15 °F (8.3 °C). The lowest recorded temperature in Key West is 41 °F (5 °C) on January 12, 1886, and January 13, 1981. Key West is located in USDA plant hardiness zone 12a, with an annual mean minimum temperature of 50 °F (10 °C). Unlike most Aw climates, there is significant rainfall during the "dry" season. Prevailing easterly tradewinds and sea breezes suppress the usual summertime heating, with temperatures rarely reaching 95 °F (35 °C). There are 56 days per year with 90 °F (32 °C) or greater highs, with the average window for such readings June 8 through September 24, shorter than almost the entire southeastern U.S. Low temperatures often remain above 80 °F (27 °C), however. The all-time record high temperature is 97 °F (36 °C) on July 19, 1880, and August 29, 1956. Wet and dry seasons Like most tropical climates, Key West has a two-season wet and dry climate. The period from November through April is normally sunny and fairly dry, with only 25 percent of the annual rainfall occurring. May through October is normally the wet season. During the wet season some rain falls on most days, often as brief, but heavy tropical downpours, followed by intense sun. Early morning is the favored time for these showers, which is different from mainland Florida, where showers and thunderstorms usually occur in the afternoon. Easterly (tropical) waves during this season occasionally bring excessive rainfall, while infrequent hurricanes may be accompanied by unusually heavy amounts. On average, rainfall markedly peaks between August and October; the single wettest month in Key West is September, when the threat from tropical weather systems (hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions) is greatest. Key West is the driest city in Florida, averaging just over 40 inches (1,000 mm) of rain per year. This is driven primarily by Key West's relative dryness in May, June and July. In mainland Florida peninsular areas like Orlando, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Fort Myers, June and July average monthly rainfalls typically reach 7 to 10 inches (180 to 250 mm), while Key West has only half such amounts over the same period. Hurricanes Key West, like the rest of the Florida Keys, is vulnerable to hurricanes. In recent history, the island has been relatively unaffected by major storms. The most recent hurricane to impact Key West was Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in the Keys in the morning of September 10, 2017 as a Category 4 storm. Some locals maintain that Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005, was the worst storm in memory. The entire island was told to evacuate and business owners were forced to shut their doors. After the hurricane had passed, the resulting storm surge sent eight feet (two meters) of water inland completely inundating a large portion of the lower Keys. Low-lying areas of Key West and the lower Keys, including major tourist destinations, were under as much as three feet (one meter) of water. Sixty percent of the homes in Key West were flooded. The higher parts of Old Town, such as the Solares Hill and cemetery areas, did not flood, because of their higher elevations of 12 to 18 feet (4 to 5 m). The surge destroyed tens of thousands of cars throughout the lower Keys, and many houses were flooded with one to two feet (thirty to sixty-one centimeters) of sea water. A local newspaper referred to Key West and the lower Keys as a "car graveyard". The peak of the storm surge occurred when the eye of Wilma had already passed over the Naples area, and the sustained winds during the surge were less than 40 mph (64 km/h; 35 kn). The storm destroyed the piers at the clothing-optional Atlantic Shores Motel and breached the shark tank at the Key West Aquarium, freeing its sharks. Damage postponed the island's famous Halloween Fantasy Fest until the following December. MTV's The Real World: Key West was filming during the hurricane and deals with the storm. In September 2005, NOAA opened its National Weather Forecasting building on White Street. The building is designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and its storm surge. The most intense previous hurricane was Hurricane Georges, a Category 2, in September 1998. The storm damaged many of the houseboats along "Houseboat Row" on South Roosevelt Boulevard near Cow Key channel on the east side of the island. See or edit raw graph data. Demographics 2010 and 2020 census As of the 2020 United States census, there were 26,444 people, 10,788 households, and 5,701 families residing in the city. As of the 2010 United States census, there were 24,649 people, 9,388 households, and 4,813 families residing in the city. 2000 census As of the census of 2000, there were 25,478 people, 11,016 households, and 5,463 families residing in the city. The population density is 1,653.3/km2 (4,285.0/mi2). There are 13,306 housing units at an average density of 863.4/km2 (2,237.9/mi2). The racial makeup of the city is 84.94% White, 9.28% Black or African American, 0.39% Native American, 1.29% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.86% from other races, and 2.18% from two or more races. 16.54% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. In 2000, there were 10,501 households, out of which 19.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.7% were married couples living together, 8.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 50.4% were classified as non-families. Of all households, 31.4% were made up of individuals, and 8.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.84. In 2000, the population was spread out, with 16.0% under the age of 18, 8.4% from 18 to 24, 37.1% from 25 to 44, 26.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 122.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 126.0 males. In 2000, the median income for a household was $43,021, and the median income for those classified as families was $50,895. Males had a median income of $30,967 versus $25,407 for females. The per capita income for the city was $26,316. About 5.8% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.5% of those under age 18 and 11.3% of those age 65 or over. The ancestries most reported in 2000 were English (12.4%), German (12.2%), Irish (11.3%), Italian (6.8%), American (6.0%) and French (3.6%). The number of families (as defined by the US census bureau) declined dramatically in the last four decades of the 20th century. In 1960, there were 13,340 families in Key West, with 42.1% of households having children living in them. By 2000, the population had dwindled to 5,463 families, with only 19.9% of households having children living in them. As of 2000, 76.66% spoke English as a first language, while Spanish was spoken by 17.32%, 1.06% spoke Italian, 1.02% spoke French, and German spoken as a mother tongue was at 0.94% of the population. In total, other languages spoken besides English made up 25.33% of residents. "Conchs" Many of the residents of Key West were immigrants from the Bahamas, known as Conchs (pronounced "conks"'), who arrived in increasing numbers after 1830. Many were sons and daughters of Loyalists who fled to the nearest Crown soil during the American Revolution. In the 20th century many residents of Key West started referring to themselves as Conchs, and the term is now generally applied to all residents of Key West. Some residents use the term "Conch" (or, alternatively, "Saltwater Conch") to refer to a person born in Key West, while the term "Freshwater Conch" refers to a resident not born in Key West but who has lived in Key West for seven years or more. The true original meaning of Conch applies only to someone with European ancestry who immigrated from the Bahamas, however. It is said that when a baby was born, the family would put a conch shell on a pole in front of their home. Many of the black Bahamian immigrants who arrived later lived in Bahama Village, an area of Old Town next to the Truman Annex. Cuban presence Key West is closer to Havana (106 miles or 171 kilometres) than it is to Miami (130 mi; 210 km). In 1890, Key West had a population of nearly 18,800 and was the biggest and richest city in Florida. Half the residents were said to be of Cuban origin, and Key West regularly had Cuban mayors, including the son of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, father of the Cuban Republic, who was elected mayor in 1876. Cubans were actively involved in reportedly 200 factories in town, producing 100 million cigars annually. José Martí made several visits to seek recruits for Cuban independence starting in 1891 and founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party during his visits to Key West. Key West received a large number of refugees during the Mariel Boatlift. Refugees continue to come ashore and, on at least one occasion, most notably in April 2003, flew hijacked Cuban Airlines planes into the city's airport. Government and politics Key West is governed via the mayor-council system. The city council is known as the city commission. It consists of six members each elected from individual districts. The mayor is elected in a citywide vote. Mayors Mayors of Key West have reflected the city's cultural and ethnic heritage. Among its mayors are the first Cuban mayor and one of the first openly gay mayors. One mayor is also famous for having water-skied to Cuba. Military presence NAS Key West, Boca Chica and the Truman Annex have been the home of U.S. ships, submarines, Pegasus-class hydrofoils, Fighter Training Squadrons like the current VFC-111 "Sundowners", and Light Photographic Reconnaissance Squadrons like the former VFP-62 "Fighting Photos" during the Cuban Missile Crisis. NAS Key West is still a training facility for US Naval Aviation personnel. Key West has had a military presence since 1823, shortly after its purchase by Simonton in 1822. John W. Simonton lobbied the U.S. government to establish a naval base on Key West, both to take advantage of its strategic location and to bring law and order to the Key West town. On March 25, 1822, naval officer Matthew C. Perry sailed the schooner Shark to Key West and planted the U.S. flag claiming the Keys as United States property. In 1823, a naval base was established to protect shipping merchants in the lower keys from pirates that would eventually evolve through the Civil War, the Spanish American War, two world wars, and the Cold War as Naval Station Key West, eventually home to the Fleet Sonar School, Marine Barracks Key West, Submarine Squadron 4, Submarine Squadron 12, Destroyer Squadron 12, and various diesel-powered submarines and surface ships. NAVSTA Key West was closed in 1974 as part of post-Vietnam War force reductions across the Department of Defense. A portion of the original NAVSTA Key West still remains under Navy control as Naval Air Station Key West-Truman Annex while a portion containing Fort Zachary Taylor was conveyed to the State of Florida as Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. The Truman Little White House has also been preserved as a museum based on its history as a part-time residence of President Harry S. Truman during his presidency. The remainder of the original base was conveyed to civilian control for redevelopment and now comprises The Key West Amphitheater, Truman Waterfront Park, residential redevelopment consisting of both homes and condominiums, and a portion of Mallory Square. Key West was always an important military post, since it sits at the northern edge of the deepwater channel connecting the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico (the southern edge 90 miles [140 km] away is Cuba) via the Florida Straits. Because of this, Key West since the 1820s had been dubbed the "Gibraltar of the West". Fort Taylor was initially built on the island. The Navy added a small base from which USS Maine sailed to its demise in Havana at the beginning of the Spanish–American War which later evolved into NAVSTA Key West. Naval Air Station Key West At the beginning of World War II the Navy increased its presence from 50 to 3,000 acres (20 to 1,214 hectares), including all of Boca Chica Key's 1,700 acres (690 ha) and the construction of Fleming Key from landfill. The Navy built the first water pipeline extending the length of the Keys, bringing fresh water from the mainland to supply its bases. At its peak 15,000 military personnel and 3,400 civilians were at the base. Included in the base are: Naval Air Station Key West – This is the main facility on Boca Chica. The air station's primary purpose is readiness training for carrier-based strike fighter, electronic attack and carrier airborne early warning squadrons of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and U.S. Pacific Fleet, primarily via the Fleet Fighter Aircrew Readiness Program (FFARP), honing the skills of Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officers in air combat training prior to overseas deployment. An additional squadron permanently based at NAS Key West, Fighter Composite Squadron 111 (VFC-111), is composed of both active duty and Navy Reserve pilots who fly F-5 Tiger II aircraft as simulated enemy aggressors in Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) for Fleet aircrews, primarily using the offshore Key West Tactical Air Crew Training System (TACTS) Range. Permanent party officer and enlisted personnel assigned to NAS Key West are primarily housed at the Navy's Sigsbee Park housing area eight miles to the west or in private housing on the local economy. In 2006 there were 1,650 active duty personnel; 2,507 family members; 35 Reserve members; and 1,312 civilians listed at the base. In the 1990s the Navy worked out an agreement with the National Park Service to eliminate sonic booms in the vicinity of Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Many of the training missions are directed at the Marquesas "Patricia" Target 29 nautical miles (54 km) due west of the base. The target is a grounded ship hulk 306 feet (93 m) in length that is visible only at low tide. Bombs are not actually dropped on the target. Truman Annex – The area next to Fort Taylor became a submarine pen and was used for the Fleet Sonar School. President Harry S. Truman was to make the commandant's house his winter White House. The Fort Taylor Annex was later renamed the Truman Annex. This portion has largely been decommissioned, with Fort Zachary Taylor conveyed to the State of Florida as a state park and the remainder turned over to private developers and the city of Key West. There are still a few military and U.S. government offices and facilities there, including the new NOAA Hurricane Forecasting Center and the military headquarters for Joint Interagency Task Force South, an element of U.S. Southern Command. The Navy still owns its piers. Trumbo Point Annex – The docking area on what had been the railroad yard for Flagler's Overseas Railroad is now used by the Coast Guard as Coast Guard Sector Key West and Coast Guard Station Key West, to include being the homeport for several Coast Guard cutters. It is also home to the Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) for NAS Key West and contains additional married family military housing. Media Key West is part of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale television market. It is served by rebroadcast transmitters in Key West and Marathon that repeat the Miami-Fort Lauderdale stations. Comcast provides cable television service. DirecTV and Dish Network provide Miami-Fort Lauderdale local stations and national channels. The Key West area has 11 FM radio stations, 4 FM translators, and 2 am stations. WEOW 92.7 is the home of The Rude Girl & Molly Blue, a popular morning zoo duo; Bill Bravo is the afternoon host. SUN 99.5 has Hoebee and Miss Loretta in the p.m. drive. Island 106.9 FM is the only locally owned, independent FM station in Key West, featuring alternative rock music and community programs. The Florida Keys Keynoter and the Key West Citizen are published locally and serve Key West and Monroe County. The Southernmost Flyer, a weekly publication printed in conjunction with the Citizen, is produced by the Public Affairs Department of Naval Air Station Key West and serves the local military community. Key West the Newspaper (known locally as The Blue Paper due to its colorful header) is a local weekly investigative newspaper, established in 1994 by Dennis Cooper, taken over in 2013 as a fully digital publication by Arnaud and Naja Girard. In October 2022, TheKeys411.com launched KeyWestPlus.com, or KeyWest+, on Roku. The channel spotlights local musicians, people of interest, and lifestyle topics in Key West and The Florida Keys. Education Monroe County School District operates public schools in Key West. District-operated elementary schools serving the City of Key West include Poinciana Elementary School, which is located on the island of Key West, and Gerald Adams Elementary School, which is located on Stock Island. District-operated middle and high schools include Horace O'Bryant School, a former middle school that now operates as a K–8 school, and the Key West High School. All of Key West is zoned to Horace O'Bryant School for grades 6–8 and to Key West High School for grades 9–12. Sigsbee Charter School is a K–8 school, sanctioned by the District and serving predominantly military dependent children as well as children from the community at large. Admission to Sigsbee Charter School is limited and the waiting list is managed by a lottery system. Key West Montessori Charter School is a district-sanctioned charter school on Key West Island. The main campus of The College of the Florida Keys (formerly Florida Keys Community College) is located in Key West. Notable people See also Conch Republic Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden Neighborhoods in Key West, Florida Port of Key West The Studios of Key West Key West Cemetery Explanatory notes References Works cited Newton, Michael (April 14, 2016). A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. McFarland. ISBN 9781476617190. - Total pages: 316 Further reading Barnett, William C. "Inventing the Conch Republic: The Creation of Key West as an Escape from Modern America", Florida Historical Quarterly (Fall 2009) 88#2 pp. 139–172. JSTOR 20700280. Boulard, Garry. "'State of Emergency': Key West in the Great Depression". Florida Historical Quarterly (Oct. 1988) Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 166–183. JSTOR 30147949. Levy, Philip. "'The Most Exotic of Our Cities': Race, Place, Writing, and George Allan England's Key West". Florida Historical Quarterly (Spring 2011), Vol. 89, No. 4: 469–499. JSTOR 23035914. Ogle, Maureen. Key West: History of an Island of Dreams (University Press of Florida, 2003). ISBN 9780813026152. OCLC 487590196. External links Nautical Chart of Key West Films produced in the Florida Keys and Key West

Judy_Blume

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Blume

Judith Blume (née Sussman; born February 12, 1938) is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 26 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023. Blume was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and graduated from New York University in 1961. As an attempt to entertain herself in her role as a homemaker, Blume began writing stories. Blume was one of the first young adult authors to write novels focused on such controversial topics as masturbation, menstruation, teen sex, birth control, and death. Her novels have sold over 82 million copies and have been translated into 32 languages. Blume has won many awards for her writing, including the American Library Association (ALA)'s Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1996 for her contributions to young adult literature. She was recognized as a Library of Congress Living Legend and awarded the 2004 National Book Foundation medal for distinguished contribution to American letters. Blume's novels are popular and widely admired. They are praised for teaching children and young adults about their bodies. However, the mature topics in Blume's books have generated criticism and controversy. The ALA has named Blume as one of the most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century. There have been several film adaptations of Blume's novels, including Tiger Eyes, released in 2012 with Willa Holland starring as Davey, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., released in 2023. A large collection of her papers are held at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. Biography Early life Blume was born Judith Sussman on February 12, 1938, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the daughter of homemaker Esther Sussman (née Rosenfeld) and dentist Rudolph Sussman. She has a brother, David, who is five years older. Her family is Jewish. Blume witnessed hardships and death throughout her childhood. When she was in third grade, Blume's older brother had a kidney infection that led Blume, her brother, and her mother to temporarily move to Miami Beach to help him recover for two years. Blume's father stayed behind to continue working. Additionally, in 1951 and 1952, there were three airplane crashes in her hometown of Elizabeth. In the crashes, 118 people died, and Blume's father, who was a dentist, helped to identify the unrecognizable remains. Blume says she "buried" these memories until she began writing her 2015 novel In the Unlikely Event, the plot of which revolves around the crashes. Throughout her childhood, Blume participated in many creative activities such as dance and piano. Blume describes her love of reading as a trait passed on by her parents. She has recalled spending much of her childhood creating stories in her head. Despite the love of stories, as a child Blume did not dream of being a writer. Blume graduated from the all-girls' Battin High School in 1956, then enrolled in Boston University. A few weeks into the first semester, she was diagnosed with mononucleosis and took a brief leave from school. In 1959, Blume's father died. Later that same year, on August 15, 1959, she married lawyer John M. Blume, whom she had met while a student at New York University. She graduated from New York University in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in Education. Adult life After college, Blume gave birth to daughter Randy Lee Blume in 1961 and became a homemaker. In 1963, her son Lawrence Andrew Blume was born. Blume began writing when her children began nursery school. John M. Blume and Judy Blume were divorced in 1975. (John M. Blume later died on September 20, 2020.) Shortly after her separation, she met Thomas A. Kitchens, a physicist. The couple married in 1976, and moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico for two years for Kitchens' work. They divorced in 1978. A few years later, a mutual friend introduced her to George Cooper, a former law professor turned non-fiction writer. Blume and Cooper were married in 1987. Cooper has one daughter from a previous marriage, Amanda, to whom Blume is very close. In August 2012, Blume announced that she was diagnosed with breast cancer after undergoing a routine ultrasound before leaving for a five-week trip to Italy. Six weeks after her diagnosis, Blume underwent a mastectomy and breast reconstruction. Blume was cancer-free following this surgery and able to recover. Randy Blume became a therapist with a sub-specialty in helping writers complete their works. She has one child, Elliot Kephart, who is credited with encouraging his grandmother, Judy Blume, to write the most recent "Fudge" books. Lawrence Blume is now a movie director, producer, and writer. As of 2021, Cooper and Blume resided in Key West. Career A lifelong avid reader, Blume first began writing through New York University courses when her children were attending preschool. Following two years of publisher rejections, Blume published her first book, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, in 1969. A year later, Blume published her second book, Iggie's House (1970), which was originally written as a story in Trailblazer magazine but then rewritten by Blume into a book. The decade that followed proved to be her most prolific, with 13 more books being published. Her third book was Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), which was a breakthrough best-seller and a trailblazing novel in young adult literature and established Blume as a leading voice in young adult literature. Some of Blume's other novels during the decade include Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (1972), and Blubber (1974). In 1975, Blume published the now frequently banned novel Forever, which was groundbreaking in young adult literature as the first novel to display teen sex as normal. Blume explained that she was inspired to write this novel when her daughter, 13 years old at the time, said she wanted to read a book where the characters have sex but do not die afterward. These novels tackled complex subjects such as family conflict, bullying, body image, and sexuality. Blume has expressed that she writes about these subjects, particularly sexuality, because it is what she believes children need to know about and was what she wondered about as a child. After publishing novels for young children and teens, Blume tackled another genre—adult reality and death. Her novels Wifey (1978) and Smart Women (1983) reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list. Wifey became a bestseller with over 4 million copies sold. Blume's third adult novel, Summer Sisters (1998), was widely praised and sold more than three million copies. Despite its popularity, Summer Sisters (1998) faced a lot of criticism for its sexual content and inclusion of homosexual themes. Several of Blume's books appear on the list of top all-time bestselling children's books. As of 2020, her books have sold over 82 million copies and they have been translated into 32 languages. Although Blume has not published a novel since 2015 (In the Unlikely Event), she continues to write. In October 2017, Yale University acquired Blume's archive, which included some unpublished early work. As well as writing, Blume has been an activist against the banning of books in the United States. In the 1980s, when her books started facing censorship and controversy, she began reaching out to other writers, as well as teachers and librarians, to join the fight against censorship. This led Blume to join the National Coalition Against Censorship which aims to protect the freedom to read. As of 2020, Blume is still a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She is also the founder and trustee of The Kids Fund, a charitable and educational foundation. Blume serves on the board for other organizations such as, the Authors Guild; the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators; the Key West Literary Seminar; and the National Coalition Against Censorship." In 2018, Blume and her husband opened a non-profit book store called Books & Books located in Key West. Blume calls herself a "liberal Democrat." Reception Blume's novels have been read by millions and have flourished throughout generations. The element in her work readers are said to love most is Blume's openness and honesty regarding issues like divorce, sexuality, puberty, and bullying. Her first-person narrative writing has gained positive appraisal for its relatability and its ability to discuss difficult subjects without judgment or harshness. Following the publishing of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), Blume received many letters from young girls telling her how much they loved the book and identified with Margaret. Female novelists have praised Blume for her “taboo-trampling” literature that left readers feeling like they learned something about their bodies from reading her books. For example, Deenie (1973) explained masturbation and Forever (1975) taught young women about losing their virginity. Blume's children's books have also been praised for their delicate way of portraying the hardships that kids can face at a young age. It’s Not the End of the World (1972) helped many kids understand divorce and the Fudge book series explored the various aspects of loving siblings despite the rivalry. Blume's novels have received much criticism and controversy. Parents, librarians, book critics, and political groups have wanted her books to be banned. When her first books were published in the 1970s, Blume has recalled facing little censorship. Since 1980, Blume's novels have been a central topic of controversy in young adult literature. Critics of Blume's novels say that she places too much emphasis on the physical and sexual sides of growing up, ignoring the development of morals and emotional maturity. Five of Blume's books were included in the American Library Association (ALA) list of the top 100 most banned books of the 1990s, with Forever (1975) in seventh place. Forever is censored for its inclusion of teen sex and birth control. Blume recalls that the principal of her children's elementary school would not put Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in the library because the story involves menstruation. Conservative and religious groups continuously attempt to ban Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret for the novel's portrayal of a young girl going through puberty claiming that it violates certain religious views. Blume's children's novels have also been criticized for these reasons, especially Blubber (1974), which many believed sent the message to readers that kids could do wrong and not face punishment. Awards and honors Judy Blume has won more than 90 literary awards, including three lifetime achievement awards in the United States. In 1994, she received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. The ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award recognizes one author who has made significant contributions to young adult literature. Blume won the annual award in 1996 and the ALA considered her book Forever, published in 1975, was groundbreaking for its honest portrayal of high school seniors in love for the first time. In April 2000, the Library of Congress named her to its Living Legends in the Writers and Artists category for her significant contributions to America's cultural heritage. Blume received an honorary doctor of arts degree from Mount Holyoke College and was the main speaker at their annual commencement ceremony in 2003. In 2004 she received the annual Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Medal of the National Book Foundation for her enrichment of American literary heritage. In 2009, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) honored Blume for her lifelong commitment to free speech and her courage to battle censorship in literature. Blume also received the 2017 E.B. White Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for lifetime achievement in children's literature. In 2020, Blume was named an Honoree for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community by the Authors Guild Foundation. Media adaptations The first media adaptation of Blume's novels was the production of a TV film based on Blume's novel Forever that premiered on CBS in 1978. Forever is the story of two teenagers in high school, Katherine Danziger and Michael Wagner, who fall in love for the first time. The film starred Stephanie Zimbalist as Katherine Danziger and Dean Butler as Michael Wagner. A decade later, in 1988, Blume and her son wrote and executive produced a small film adaptation of Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. The film was later shown on ABC. In 1995, a Fudge TV series was produced based on Blume's novel Fudge-a-Mania. The show ran from 1995 to 1997 with the first season aired on ABC and the second on CBS. The series starred Jake Richardson as Peter Warren Hatcher, the storyteller, and Luke Tarsitano as Farley Drexel "Fudge" Hatcher. In 2012, Blume's 1981 novel Tiger Eyes was adapted into a film version. This was the first of Blume's novels to be turned into a theatrical feature film. Tiger Eyes is the story of a teenage girl, Davey, who struggles to cope with the sudden death of her father, Adam Wexler. The screenplay was co-written by Blume and her son, Lawrence Blume, who was also the director. Tiger Eyes stars Willa Holland as Davey and Amy Jo Johnson as Gwen Wexler. Blume is the subject of the 2018 song "Judy Blume" by Amanda Palmer. Thematically, the song explains to the listener Blume's role in Palmer's adolescent life. The song explains Blume's books as influential in Palmer's understanding of intimate and female-centered subjects such as puberty, menstruation, and the male gaze, and universal subjects like molestation, eating disorders, poverty, grief, and parental divorce. She is the subject of the documentary film Judy Blume Forever, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. was released as a feature film in 2023. Works Children’s books The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo (1969) Iggie's House (1970) Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972) Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (1972) The Pain and the Great One (1974) Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (1977) Freckle Juice (1978) Superfudge (1980) Fudge-a-Mania (1990) Double Fudge (2002) Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One (2007) Cool Zone with the Pain and the Great One (2008) Going, Going, Gone! With the Pain and the Great One (2008) Friend or Fiend? With the Pain and the Great One (2008) Young adult books Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (1970) Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (1971) It's Not the End of the World (1972) Deenie (1973) Blubber (1974) Forever... (1975) Tiger Eyes (1981) Just as Long as We're Together (1987) Here's to You, Rachel Robinson (1993) Places I Never Meant to Be (1999) Adult books Wifey (1978) Smart Women (1983) Summer Sisters (1998) In the Unlikely Event (2015) Collaborative short stories It’s Fine to Be Nine (2000) It’s Heaven to Be Seven (2000) Non-fiction books The Judy Blume Diary (1981) Letter to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You (1986) The Judy Blume Memory Book (1988) Other awards Blume's other awards include: 1970: Outstanding Book of the Year from The New York Times for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret 1974: Outstanding Book of the Year from The New York Times for Blubber 1981: Children’ Choice Award from the International Reading Association and Children's’ Book Council for Superfudge 1983: Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award 1984: Carl Sandberg Freedom to Read Award, from the Chicago Public Library 1986: Civil Liberties Award from the Atlanta Civil Liberties Union 1988: South Australian Youth Media Award for Best Author 2005: Time magazine All-Time 100 Novels List for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret 2009: University of Southern Mississippi Medallion for lifelong contributions to children's literature 2010: Inducted into New Jersey Hall of Fame 2010: Inducted into Harvard Lampoon 2011: Smithsonian Associates: The McGovern Award 2013: Chicago Tribune: Young Adult Literary Prize 2013: New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Legacy Award 2013: The NAIBA Legacy Award 2013: Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) Award 2013: National Coalition of Teachers of English (NCTE) National Intellectual Freedom Award 2015: Catholic Library Association: Regina Award 2018: Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation References Further reading Blume, Judy (1999). Authors and Artists for Young Adults (Gale Research), 26: 7–17. Summarizes and extends 1990 article, with more emphasis on Blume's impact and censorship issues. By R. Garcia-Johnson. Blume, Judy (1990). Authors and Artists for Young Adults (Gale Research), 3: 25–36. Incorporates extensive passages from published interviews with Blume. Lee, Betsy. Judy Blume's Story, Dillon Pr., 1981. ISBN 0875182097. External links Official website Judy Blume at Library of Congress, with 73 library catalog records Judy Blume at IMDb Appearances on C-SPAN Judy Blume on Charlie Rose Most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century at American Library Association Banned & Challenged Books Interview with Maryann Weidt, author of Presenting Judy Blume (1993) – NORTHERN LIGHTS Minnesota Author Interview TV Series #259 Speak Freely Amongst Yourselves: Censorship and Its Affect on the Arts (1993) at YouTube – television special with Blume as one panel member

Clive_Barker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Barker

Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English writer, filmmaker and visual artist. He came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works. His fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series, the first installment of which he also wrote and directed, and the Candyman series. Barker's paintings and illustrations have been shown in galleries in the United States, and have appeared in his books. He has also created characters and series for comic books, and some of his more popular horror stories have been featured in ongoing comics series. Early life Barker was born on 5 October 1952 in Liverpool, the son of Joan Ruby (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. He was educated at Dovedale Primary School, Quarry Bank High School and the University of Liverpool, where he studied English and philosophy. When he was three, Barker witnessed the French skydiver Léo Valentin plummet to his death in 1956 during a performance at an air show in Liverpool. He later alluded to Valentin in many of his stories. Theatrical work Barker's involvement in live theatre began while still in school with productions of Voodoo and Inferno in 1967. He collaborated on six plays with Theatre of the Imagination in 1974 and two more that he was the sole writer of, A Clowns' Sodom and Day of the Dog, for The Mute Pantomime Theatre in 1976 and 1977. He co-founded the avant-garde theatrical troupe The Dog Company in 1978 with former school friends and up and coming actors, many of whom would go on to become key collaborators in Barker's film work. Doug Bradley took on the iconic role of Pinhead in the Hellraiser series while Peter Atkins wrote the scripts for the first three Hellraiser sequels. Over the next five years Barker wrote nine plays, often serving as director, including some of his most well-known stage productions, The History of The Devil, Frankenstein in Love, and The Secret Life of Cartoons. From 1982 to 1983, he wrote Crazyface, Subtle Bodies and Colossus for the Cockpit Youth Theatre. His theatrical work came to a close as he shifted focus to writing the Books of Blood. Writing career Barker is an author of horror and fantasy. He began writing horror early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories (collected in Books of Blood 1–6) and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game (1985). Later he moved toward modern-day fantasy and urban fantasy with horror elements in Weaveworld (1987), The Great and Secret Show (1989), the world-spanning Imajica (1991), and Sacrament (1996). When Books of Blood was first published in the United States in paperback, Stephen King was quoted on the book covers: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker." As influences on his writing, Barker lists Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, William S. Burroughs, William Blake, and Jean Cocteau, among others. He is the writer of the best-selling Abarat series. In early 2024 he announced he would stop attending conventions and public events so he could focus more on his writing, as he was working on the manuscripts for 31 different projects, some closer to completion than others. Personal life During his early years as a writer, Barker occasionally worked as an escort when his writing did not provide sufficient income. With the success of Weaveworld, he could permanently retire as a sex worker. In 2003, he received the Davidson/Valentini Award at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards. He has been open about his experiences with sadomasochism, and says that "on S&M's sliding scale, I'm probably a 6". Barker is critical of organized religion, but has said that the Bible influences his work and spirituality. Years later, he said on Facebook that he did not identify himself as a Christian. Barker said in a December 2008 online interview (published in March 2009) that he had throat polyps which were so severe, a doctor told him he was taking in only 10% of the air he was supposed to. He has had two surgeries to remove them and believes his voice has improved as a result. He said he did not have cancer, and has given up cigars. In 2012, Barker entered a coma for several days after contracting toxic shock syndrome, triggered by a visit to a dentist where a spillage of poisonous bacteria entered his bloodstream, almost killing him. Realising he might have just a short time to live, he decided to put his personal concerns about the world and society into the upcoming novel Deep Hill, which he thought could be his final book. As of 2015, he is a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum. Relationships While appearing on the radio call-in show Loveline on 20 August 1996, Barker said that in his teens he had several relationships with older women, but came to identify himself as homosexual by 18 or 19. His relationship with John Gregson lasted from 1975 until 1986. He later spent 13 years with photographer David Armstrong, described as his husband in the introduction to Coldheart Canyon; they separated in 2009. Film work Barker wrote the screenplays for Underworld (1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou. Displeased by how his material was handled, he moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. After his film Nightbreed (1990) flopped, Barker returned to write and direct Lord of Illusions (1995). The short story "The Forbidden", from Barker's Books of Blood, provided the basis for the 1992 film Candyman and its three sequels. He had been working on a series of film adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under The Walt Disney Company's management, but due to creative differences, the project was cancelled. He served as an executive producer for the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, a semi-fictional tale of Frankenstein director James Whale's later years, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Barker said of his interest in the project: "Whale was gay, I'm gay; Whale was English, I'm English…Whale made some horror movies, and I've made some horror movies. It seemed as if I should be helping to tell this story." Barker also provided the foreword on the published shooting script. In 2005, Barker and horror film producer Jorge Saralegui created the film production company Midnight Picture Show with the intent of producing two horror films per year. In October 2006, Barker announced through his website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser film. He was developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys. In 2020, Barker regained control of the Hellraiser franchise, and served as executive producer on a 2022 reboot film for the streaming service Hulu. Television work In May 2015, Variety reported that Clive Barker was developing a television series adaptation of various creepypastas in partnership with Warner Brothers, to be called Clive Barker's Creepypastas, a feature arc based on Slender Man and Ben Drowned. Barker was involved in a streaming service film adaptation of The Books of Blood in 2020, and is developing a Nightbreed television series directed by Michael Dougherty and written by Josh Stolberg for SyFy. In April 2020, HBO was announced to be developing a Hellraiser television series that would serve as "an elevated continuation and expansion" of its mythology with Mark Verheiden and Michael Dougherty writing the series and David Gordon Green directing several episodes. Verheiden, Dougherty and Green will also be executive producing the series with Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Brandon James and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment. Visual art Barker is a prolific visual artist, often illustrating his own books. His paintings have been seen first on the covers of his official fan club magazine, Dread, published by Fantaco in the early '90s; on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations (1995) and Forms of Heaven (1996); and on the second printing of the original British publications of his Books of Blood series. Barker also provided the artwork for his young adult novel The Thief of Always and for the Abarat series. His artwork has been exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles and Chicago, at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York and La Luz De Jesus in Los Angeles. Many of his sketches and paintings can be found in the collection Clive Barker, Illustrator, published in 1990 by Arcane/Eclipse Books, and in Visions of Heaven and Hell, published in 2005 by Rizzoli Books. He worked on the horror video game Clive Barker's Undying, providing the voice for the character Ambrose. Undying was developed by DreamWorks Interactive and released in 2001. He worked on Clive Barker's Jericho for Codemasters, which was released in late 2007. Barker created Halloween costume designs for Disguise Costumes. Around 150 art works by Barker were used in the set of the Academy of the Unseen Arts for the Netflix TV series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Comic books Barker published his Razorline imprint via Marvel Comics in 1993. Barker horror adaptations and spin-offs in comics include the Marvel/Epic Comics series Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Pinhead, The Harrowers, Book of the Damned, and Jihad; Eclipse Books' series and graphic novels Tapping The Vein, Dread, Son of Celluloid, Revelations, The Life of Death, Rawhead Rex and The Yattering and Jack, and Dark Horse Comics' Primal, among others. Barker served as a consultant and wrote issues of the Hellraiser anthology comic book. In 2005, IDW published a three-issue adaptation of Barker's children's fantasy novel The Thief of Always, written and painted by Kris Oprisko and Gabriel Hernandez. IDW is publishing a 12 issue adaptation of Barker's novel The Great and Secret Show. In December 2007, Chris Ryall and Clive Barker announced an upcoming collaboration of an original comic book series, Torakator, to be published by IDW. In 2008, Barker authored a foreword for the first volume of the DEMONICSEX comic series by Chuck Conner and Sean Platter. In October 2009, IDW published Seduth, co-written by Barker. The work was released with three variant covers. In 2011, Boom! Studios began publishing an original Hellraiser comic book series. In 2013, Boom! Studios announced Next Testament, the first original story by Barker to be published in comic book format. Works Novels The Damnation Game (1985) Weaveworld (1987) Cabal (1988), novella The Great and Secret Show (1989) Imajica (1991) The Thief of Always (1992) Everville (1994) Sacrament (1996) Galilee (1998) Coldheart Canyon (2001) Tortured Souls (2001). Novelette starring the characters of the series of first six action figures of Tortured Souls. In 2015 it was published with title Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium. The Infernal Parade (2004). Novelette detailing the backstories of the characters of the series of six action figures of The Infernal Parade. In 2017 it was published with title Infernal Parade. Mister B. Gone (2007) Mr. Maximillian Bacchus And His Travelling Circus (2009) Chiliad: A Meditation (2014) Hellraiser series The Hellbound Heart (1986), novella The Scarlet Gospels (2015) Hellraiser: The Toll (2018) (Story credit; Barker's unfinished short story "Heaven's Reply" served as a basis for the novella, which was authored by Mark Alan Miller) Books of the Art series The Great and Secret Show (1989) Everville (1994) The Books of Abarat Abarat (2002) Days of Magic, Nights of War (2004) Absolute Midnight (2011) Short stories Collections: Books of Blood: Books of Blood: Volume One (1984), ISBN 9780425083895, collection of 1 short story and 5 novelettes: "The Book of Blood", "The Midnight Meat Train" (novelette), "The Yattering and Jack" (novelette), "Pig Blood Blues" (novelette), "Sex, Death and Starshine" (novelette), "In the Hills, the Cities" (novelette) Books of Blood, Volume Two, or Books of Blood, Volume II (1984), ISBN 9780722114131, collection of 5 novelettes: "Dread", "Hell's Event", "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament", "The Skins of the Fathers", "New Murders in the Rue Morgue" Books of Blood, Volume Three, or Books of Blood 3 (1984), ISBN 9780751511697, collection of 5 novelettes: "Son of Celluloid", "Rawhead Rex", "Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud", "Scape-Goats", "Human Remains" Books of Blood: Volume IV, or The Inhuman Condition (1985), ISBN 9780722113738, collection of 1 short story and 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Body Politic" (novelette), "The Inhuman Condition" (novelette), "Revelations" (novella), "Down, Satan!", "The Age of Desire" (novella) Books of Blood: Volume V, or In the Flesh (1985), ISBN 9780722113745, collection of 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Forbidden" (novelette), "The Madonna" (novelette), "Babel's Children" (novelette), "In the Flesh" (novella) Books of Blood: Volume VI, or Books of Blood 6 (1985), ISBN 9780722113752, collection of 1 short story and 4 novelettes/novellas: "The Life of Death" (novelette), "How Spoilers Bleed" (novelette), "Twilight at the Towers" (novelette), "The Last Illusion" (novella), "On Jerusalem Street" The Essential Clive Barker: Selected Fiction (1999), ISBN 9780060195298, collection of more than seventy excerpts from novels and plays and four full-length stories (1 short story and 3 novelettes): "The Departed", "The Forbidden" (novelette), "In the Hills, the Cities" (novelette), "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament" (novelette) Clive Barker's First Tales (2013), ISBN 9781311693518, collection of 1 short story and 1 novella: "The Wood on the Hill", "The Candle in the Cloud" (novella) Tonight, Again: Tales of Love, Lust and Everything in Between (2015), ISBN 9781596066946, collection of 24 short stories and 7 poems: "Tonight, Again", "I Love You" (poem), "Craw: A Fable", "Afraid", "Moved", "I Imagine You", "If the Pen Is the Penis" (poem), "Touch the Rod" (poem), "Martha", "Tit", "The Freaks", "Cruelty" (poem), "Dollie", "The Collection", "What May Not Be Shown", "Two Views from a Window", "Men in the Aisles of Supermarkets" (poem), "A Blessing", "Unrequited", "Another Genesis", "Inside Out (Wasteland)", "I Have My Art" (poem), "Aurora", "Whistling in the Dark", "The Common Flesh", "Mr. Fred Coady Professes His Undying Love for His Little Sylvia", "The Phone Call", "The Multitude", "A Monster Lies in Wait" (poem), "An Incident at the Nunnery", "The Genius of Denny Dan" Fear Eternal (TBA) Uncollected short stories: "Lost Souls" (1986) "Coming to Grief" (1988), novelette "The Rhapsodist" (1988) "Nightbreed" (1990), screenplay for the film, based on novel Cabal "Pidgin and Theresa" (1993) "Animal Life" (1994) "Sacrament" (1996), novelette "Haeckel's Tale" (2005) "How Mr. Maximillian Bacchus' Travelling Circus Reached Cathay, and Entertained the Court of the Khan Called Kublai In Xanadu, How They Sought the Bearded Bird, and How, At Last, Angelo Was Lost" (2009) "How the Clown Domingo de Y Barrondo Fell Over the Edge of the World" (2009) "The Face of the Flying Fish and Why Docor Jozabiah Bentham's Theatre of Tears Sailed North" (2009) "The Wedding of Indigo Murphy To the Duke Lorenzo de Medici and How Angelo Was Discovered in an Orchard" (2009) "And So with Cries" (2009) "A Night's Work" (2013) Plays Collections: Incarnations: Three Plays (1995), collection of 3 plays: "Colossus", "Frankenstein in love or The Life of death", "The History of the Devil or Scenes from a Pretended Life" Forms of Heaven: Three Plays (1996), collection of 3 plays: "Crazyface", "Paradise Street", "Subtle Bodies" All plays: A Clowns' Sodom (The Mute Pantomime Theatre, 1976) Day of the Dog (The Mute Pantomime Theatre, 1977) The Sack (The Dog Company, 1978) The Magician (The Dog Company, 1978) Dog (The Dog Company, 1979) Nightlives (The Dog Company, 1979) History of the Devil (The Dog Company, 1980) Dangerous World (The Dog Company, 1981) Paradise Street (The Dog Company, 1981) Frankenstein in Love (The Dog Company, 1982) The Secret Life of Cartoons (The Dog Company, 1982) Crazyface (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1982) Subtle Bodies (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1983) Colossus (Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1983) Poems Uncollected poems: "Six Commonplaces (from Weaveworld)" (1987), published in Fantasy Tales, V9n17, Summer 1987 "There Was A Time" (2010), published in Multiverses by Preston Grassmann, ed. "The Hour" (2021), published in Out of the Ruins by Preston Grassmann, ed. "The Presence of This Breath" (TBA) "Upon A Warm Milk Dawn" (2024), published in The Mad Butterfly's Ball by Preston Grassmann and Chris Kelso, ed. Non-fiction Art Clive Barker, Illustrator series: Clive Barker, Illustrator (1990) Illustrator II: The Art of Clive Barker (1992) Visions of Heaven and Hell (2005) Clive Barker: Imaginer series: Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 1 (2014) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 2 (2015) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 3 (2016) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 4 (2017) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 5 (2018) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 6 (2018) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 7 (2020) Clive Barker: Imaginer Volume 8 (2020) Essays The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies (2011) Toys Tortured Souls (2001–2002). Series of 12 action figures (six designed in 2001 and six in 2002) and a novelette starring the characters of the first six action figures The Infernal Parade (2004) Co-created with Todd McFarlane, series of six action figures and a novelette detailing the backstories of the characters. Filmography Adaptations Rawhead Rex (1986), film directed by George Pavlou, based on novelette "Rawhead Rex" Hellraiser (1987), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella The Hellbound Heart Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), film directed by Tony Randel, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Nightbreed (1990), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella Cabal Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), film directed by Anthony Hickox, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Candyman (1992), film directed by Bernard Rose, based on novelette "The Forbidden" Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), film directed by Bill Condon, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Lord of Illusions (1995), film directed by Clive Barker, based on novella "The Last Illusion" Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), film directed by Kevin Yagher and Joe Chapelle, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "The Body Politic", first story of the TV movie Quicksilver Highway (1997) directed by Mick Garris, based on novelette "The Body Politic" Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999), film directed by Turi Meyer, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), film directed by Scott Derrickson, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Deader (2005), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005), film directed by Rick Bota, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Prophecy (2006), fan film directed by Jonathan S. Kui, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "Haeckel's Tale" (2006), episode from Masters of Horror, based on short story "Haeckel's Tale" The Midnight Meat Train (2008), film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, based on novelette "The Midnight Meat Train" Hellraiser: Deader - Winter's Lament (2009), fan film directed by Jonathan S. Kui, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Dread (2009), film directed by Anthony DiBlasi, based on novelette "Dread" Book of Blood (2009), film directed by John Harrison, based on short stories "The Book of Blood" and "On Jerusalem Street" Hellraiser: Revelations (2011), film directed by Víctor Garcia, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Hellraiser: Judgment (2018), film directed by Gary J. Tunnicliffe, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart Chatterer: A Hellraiser Fan Film (2020), fan film directed by Nicholas Michael Jacobs, based on characters from the novella The Hellbound Heart "Miles", second story of the TV movie Books of Blood (2020) directed by Brannon Braga, based on short story "The Book of Blood" "Bennett", third story of the TV movie Books of Blood (2020) directed by Brannon Braga, based on short story "On Jerusalem Street" Candyman (2021), film directed by Nia DaCosta, based on characters from the novelette "The Forbidden" Hellraiser (2022), film directed by David Bruckner, based on novella The Hellbound Heart Video games See also Cenobite Clive Barker's unrealized projects Lemarchand's box List of horror fiction writers Splatterpunk References Bibliography Andrew Smith, "Worlds That Creep upon You: Postmodern Illusions in the Work of Clive Barker". In Clive Bloom, ed., Creepers: British Horror and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. London and Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1993, pp. 176–86. Suzanne J. Barbieri, Clive Barker: Mythmaker for the Millennium. Stockport, UK: British Fantasy Society, 1994, ISBN 0952415305. OCLC 32131027. Gary Hoppenstand, Clive Barker's Short Stories: Imagination as Metaphor in the Books of Blood and Other Works. (With a foreword by Clive Barker). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1994, ISBN 0899509843. Linda Badley, Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice. London: Greenwood Press, 1996, ISBN 0313297169. Chris Morgan, "Barker, Clive", in David Pringle, ed., St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. London: St. James Press, 1998, ISBN 1558622063 S. T. Joshi, The Modern Weird Tale. Jefferson, N.C., London: McFarland, 2001, ISBN 078640986X. Douglas E. Winter, Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic. New York: Harper, 2002, ISBN 0066213924. Edwin F. Casebeer, "Clive Barker (1952–)" in: Darren Harris-Fain (ed.) British Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Since 1960. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale, 2002, ISBN 0787660051. K. A. Laity, "Clive Barker" in: Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003, ISBN 0684312506. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (ed.). Clive Barker: Dark imaginer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. 280pp. ISBN 9780719096921. External links Official website Clive Barker Archive Clive Barker - Biography, works at Clive Barker Archive Clive Barker at IMDb Clive Barker at AllMovie Clive Barker at the BFI's Screenonline Clive Barker at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

William,_Prince_of_Wales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William,_Prince_of_Wales

William, Prince of Wales (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982), is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. William was born during the reign of his paternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. He was educated at Wetherby School, Ludgrove School and Eton College. He earned a Master of Arts degree in geography at the University of St Andrews where he met his future wife, Catherine Middleton. They have three children: George, Charlotte and Louis. After university, William trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst prior to serving with the Blues and Royals regiment. In 2008 he graduated from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell, joining the RAF Search and Rescue Force in early 2009. He served as a full-time pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance for two years, starting in July 2015. William performs official duties and engagements on behalf of the monarch. He holds patronage with over 30 charitable and military organisations, including the Tusk Trust, Centrepoint, The Passage, Wales Air Ambulance and London's Air Ambulance Charity. He undertakes projects through the Royal Foundation, with his charity work revolving around mental health, conservation, homelessness, and emergency workers. In 2020 William launched the Earthshot Prize, a £50 million initiative to incentivise environmental solutions over the next decade. William was made Duke of Cambridge immediately before his wedding in April 2011. He became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay upon his father's accession to the throne on 8 September 2022. The following day he was made Prince of Wales. Early life Prince William was born at 21:03 BST on 21 June 1982 in St Mary's Hospital, London, as the first child of Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and his first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, during the reign of his paternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Buckingham Palace announced his name – William Arthur Philip Louis – on 28 June. William was christened in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, on 4 August, coinciding with the 82nd birthday of his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. William was the first child born to a Prince and Princess of Wales since Prince John was born to Prince George and Princess Mary (later King George V and Queen Mary) in July 1905. When he was nine months old, William accompanied his parents on their 1983 tour of Australia and New Zealand, as his first trip overseas. It also marked the first time that a royal baby was taken on an overseas tour. His younger brother, Prince Harry, was born in September 1984. Both of them were raised at Kensington Palace in London, and Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. Known informally as "Wills" within his family, William was nicknamed "Willy" by his brother and "Wombat" by his mother. Diana wished her sons to obtain broader and more typical life experiences beyond royal upbringing, taking them to Walt Disney World, McDonald's, AIDS clinics and shelters for the homeless. Biographer Robert Lacey asserts that William, a "rambunctious" and "bratty" child, grew "more reflective" with a "noticeably quiet character" as he began boarding school. Diana was reported to have described William as "my little wise old man" on whom she started to rely as her confidant by his early teens. William carried out his first public engagement while accompanying his parents on a visit to Llandaff on Saint David's Day in 1991. He and Harry travelled to Canada on an official visit with their parents in 1991 and again with Charles in 1998. William's parents divorced in 1996. Diana died in a car accident in the early hours of 31 August 1997. William, then aged 15, together with his 12-year-old brother and their father, was staying at Balmoral Castle at the time. The following morning, Charles informed William and Harry of their mother's death. William was reportedly uncertain as to whether he should walk behind his mother's coffin during the funeral procession. His grandfather Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, told him: "If you don't walk, I think you'll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?". At the funeral, William and Harry walked alongside their father, grandfather, and maternal uncle, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, behind the funeral cortège from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. After his mother's death, William stated that he was "in a state of shock for many years". He and Harry inherited the majority of the £12.9 million left by their mother on their respective 30th birthdays, a figure that had grown to £10 million each by 2014. In 2014 the brothers inherited their mother's wedding dress along with many other of her personal possessions including dresses, diamond tiaras, jewels, letters and paintings. They also received the original lyrics and score of "Candle in the Wind" by Bernie Taupin and Elton John as performed by the latter at Diana's funeral. In 2002 The Times reported that William and Harry would also share £4.9 million from trust funds established by their great-grandmother on their respective 21st birthdays, as well as £8 million upon their respective 40th birthdays. Education William was educated at private schools, starting at Jane Mynors' nursery school and the pre-preparatory Wetherby School, both in London. Following this, he attended Ludgrove School near Wokingham, Berkshire, and was privately tutored during summers by Rory Stewart. At Ludgrove, he participated in football, swimming, basketball, clay pigeon shooting, and cross country running. He was subsequently admitted to Eton College, studying geography, biology, and history of art at A-Level. He obtained an 'A' in geography, a 'C' in biology, and a 'B' in history of art. William was captain of the swimming team and his house football team at Eton, also taking up water polo. The decision to place William at Eton went against the family tradition of sending royal children to Gordonstoun, which his father and grandfather both attended. Diana's brother and father were both Eton students. The royal family and the tabloid press agreed that William would be allowed to study free from intrusion in exchange for regular updates about his life. John Wakeham, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, stated "Prince William is not an institution; nor a soap star; nor a football hero. He is a boy: in the next few years, perhaps the most important and sometimes painful part of his life, he will grow up and become a man." While at Eton, he often had tea on weekends at the nearby Windsor Castle with his grandmother, discussing state boxes and constitutional duties meant to "prepare [him] as future King." In June 1991, William was admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital after being accidentally hit on the forehead by a fellow pupil wielding a golf club. He suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and was operated on at Great Ormond Street Hospital, resulting in a permanent scar. The incident received widespread media attention. In 1999 he underwent an operation on his left hand after he broke a finger. After completing his studies at Eton, William took a gap year, during which he took part in British Army training exercises in Belize, worked on English dairy farms, and visited Africa. As part of the Raleigh International programme in the town of Tortel in southern Chile, William worked for ten weeks on local construction projects and taught English. He lived with other young volunteers, sharing in the common household chores. His interest in African culture prompted him to teach himself Swahili. In 2001 William enrolled at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Similar to his time at Eton, the media agreed not to invade his privacy, and students were warned not to leak stories to the press. William embarked on a degree course in Art History but later changed his main subject to Geography. He focused his dissertation on the Indian Ocean's Rodrigues coral reefs and graduated with an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree with upper second class honours in 2005. While at university, he represented the Scottish national universities water polo team at the Celtic Nations tournament in 2004. He was reportedly known as "Steve" by other students to avoid any journalists overhearing and realising his identity. Early appointments and duties At the age of 21, William was appointed a Counsellor of State; he first served in that capacity when the Queen attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the same year. In July 2005, he embarked on his first solo public engagements on an overseas tour of New Zealand, travelling to participate in World War II commemorations. According to author Tina Brown, he had, like his father, expressed a desire to become Governor-General of Australia. In 2009 the Queen set up a private office for William and Harry with David Manning as their adviser. Manning accompanied William on his first official tour in January 2010 as the latter toured Auckland and Wellington; William opened the new building of the Supreme Court of New Zealand and was welcomed by a Māori chief. The visit spurred crowds of "many thousands", with positive public reception compared to that of his mother's 1983 tour. In March 2011, William visited Christchurch, New Zealand, shortly after the earthquake, and spoke at the memorial service at Hagley Park on behalf of his grandmother. He also travelled to Australia to visit areas affected by flooding in Queensland and Victoria. Before attending Sandhurst, William did a three-week internship at several institutions, including the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd's of London. To prepare for his eventual management of the Duchy of Cornwall, in 2014, he entered St John's College, Cambridge to undertake an executive agriculture management degree run by the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), of which his father is patron. In April 2019, Kensington Palace announced that William had completed a three-week internship at MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, during which he was tasked with monitoring extreme Islamist terror cells, identifying potential threats abroad, and observing code breaking technology. Military and air ambulance service Having decided on a military career, William was admitted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in January 2006; his admission was based on successfully completing a 44-week course as an Officer Cadet which led to his commission as a British Army officer. As "Lieutenant Wales" – a name based on his father's then title Prince of Wales – he followed his brother into the Blues and Royals in December that year as a troop commander in an armoured reconnaissance unit, after which he spent five months training for the post at Bovington Camp in Dorset. Despite the Queen's approval for William to serve on the frontline, his position as second-in-line to the throne at the time cast doubts on his chances of seeing combat. Plans by the Ministry of Defence to send William to Southern Iraq leaked and the government eventually decided against sending him as it would endanger both his life and the lives of people around him if he was targeted. William instead trained in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, obtaining his commission as a sub-lieutenant in the former and a flying officer in the latter, both broadly equivalent to the army rank of lieutenant. After completing his training, he undertook an attachment with the Royal Air Force at RAF Cranwell. Upon completing the course he was presented with his RAF wings by his father, who had received his own wings after training at Cranwell. During this secondment, William flew to Afghanistan in a C-17 Globemaster that repatriated the body of Trooper Robert Pearson. William was then seconded to train with the Royal Navy. He then completed an accelerated Naval Officer training course at the Britannia Royal Naval College. Whilst serving on HMS Iron Duke in July 2008, William participated in a £40m drug seizure in the Atlantic, north-east of Barbados. He was part of the crew on the Lynx helicopter which helped seize 900 kg of cocaine from a speedboat. In January 2009, William transferred his commission to the RAF and was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. He trained to become a helicopter pilot with the RAF's Search and Rescue Force. As part of his training across all branches of the military in 2009, he spent up to six weeks with the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service, and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. In January 2010, he graduated from the Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury. In the same month, he transferred to the Search and Rescue Training Unit at RAF Valley, Anglesey, to receive training on the Sea King search and rescue helicopter; he graduated in September 2010. This made him the first member of the British royal family since Henry VII to live in Wales. William's first rescue mission as co-pilot of a RAF Sea King was in response to an emergency call from Liverpool Coastguard in October 2010. In November 2011, he participated in a search-and-rescue mission involving a cargo ship that was sinking in the Irish Sea; William, as a co-pilot, helped rescue two sailors. He was deployed to the Falkland Islands for a six-week tour with No. 1564 Flight from February to March 2012. The Argentine government condemned William's deployment to the islands close to the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Falklands War as a "provocative act". In June 2012, he gained a qualification to be captain or pilot in command of a Sea King rather than a co-pilot. His active service as an RAF search-and-rescue pilot ended in September 2013. He conducted 156 search and rescue operations, which resulted in 149 people being rescued. He later became patron to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. In July 2015, William began working full-time as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) based at Cambridge Airport, which he felt was a natural progression from his previous search-and-rescue role. He donated his full salary to the EAAA charity. William required a civil pilot's licence and further training before being permitted to begin his role. He underwent part of his training at Norwich Airport. William described working irregular shifts and dealing mostly with critical care cases. He also discussed the impact of witnessing intensive trauma and bereavement on his mental health and personal life. The BBC has written that William was "exposed to the National Health Service in a way that no other senior royal has been or possibly ever will be." William left his position with EAAA in July 2017 to assume full-time royal duties. After supporting an anniversary campaign for London's Air Ambulance Charity in 2019, he became the charity's official patron in March 2020. In May 2020, he granted permission to the charity to use Kensington Palace's private lawn to refuel during the COVID-19 pandemic. To mark Air Ambulance Week 2020, he wrote a letter thanking air ambulance workers, stating his "profound respect" for the community, particularly during the "immeasurably difficult" outbreak. In February 2023, he became patron of the Wales Air Ambulance charity. Personal life Relationship with Catherine Middleton In 2001 William met Catherine Middleton, while they were students in residence at St Salvator's Hall, at the University of St Andrews, and they became close friends. She reportedly caught William's attention at a charity fashion show at the university in 2002 when she appeared on the stage wearing a see-through lace dress. During their second year, William shared a flat with Middleton and two other friends. The couple began dating in 2003. From 2003 to 2005 they both resided at Balgove House on the Strathtyrum estate with two roommates. In 2004 the couple briefly split but reconciled soon afterwards. The relationship was followed closely by the tabloid press. Media attention became so intense that William asked the press to keep their distance from Middleton. In December 2006, Middleton and her family attended William's passing out parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In April 2007, William and Middleton were reported to have split. Middleton and her family attended the Concert for Diana three months later; the couple were subsequently reported to have "rekindled their relationship". She also attended the Order of the Garter procession at Windsor Castle in June 2008, where William was made a Royal Knight of the Garter. In June 2010, the couple moved into a cottage on the Bodorgan Estate in Anglesey, Wales, where they resided until 2014. Marriage and children The couple became engaged in October 2010, at a remote alpine cabin on Mount Kenya, during a 10-day trip to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to celebrate William's passing the RAF helicopter search and rescue course. Clarence House announced their engagement on 16 November. William gave his fianceé his mother's engagement ring. The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011. The global audience for the wedding ranged around 300 million, whereas 26 million watched the event live in Britain alone. William and Catherine used Nottingham Cottage as their London home until 2013, when £4.5 million renovations completed at Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, which continues to be their official residence in the capital. The couple were given the country house Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham Estate, as a wedding gift from the Queen, where they lived from 2015 to 2017. Kensington Palace was the couple's main residence until 2022, when the family moved to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor. Catherine's first pregnancy was announced in December 2012. She was admitted on 22 July 2013 to the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, London, where Prince William had been delivered. Later that day, she gave birth to Prince George. In September 2014, it was announced that Catherine was pregnant with her second child. She was admitted on 2 May 2015 to the same hospital where she gave birth to Princess Charlotte the same day. Catherine's third pregnancy was announced in September 2017; Prince Louis was born on 23 April 2018. William and Catherine have owned two English Cocker Spaniels, named Lupo and Orla. Duke of Cambridge William was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus on the day of his wedding in April 2011. He and Catherine toured Canada that summer. Nicholas Witchell, writing for BBC News, noted that the tour to Canada had been an "unqualified success" for the couple as they engaged in various activities from tree planting to street hockey, with their warm interactions and thoughtful gestures enhancing their popularity and reinforcing positive sentiments towards the monarchy in Canada. The couple served as ambassadors for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, during multiple sporting events throughout the games. In September 2013, William and Catherine visited Singapore, Malaysia, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. William hosted his first investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace in October that year. In April 2014, he and Catherine undertook a royal tour to New Zealand and Australia accompanied by their son George. In August that year, the couple and Prince Harry represented the royal family at World War I commemorations in Belgium. In December, the couple visited New York and Washington DC, where William made a speech at the World Bank condemning the illegal trade in wildlife. In 2015 and 2016 William embarked on various visits of Asian countries, including Japan, China, Bhutan and India; he was the first royal to visit mainland China in almost three decades, with the press referring to William's diplomacy as "deft" and "polished". In response to media allegations of being "work-shy", he asserted his commitment to his duties, emphasizing his dedication to fatherhood and his role in air ambulance work. Countries visited by William and Catherine in 2017 included France, Poland, Germany, and Belgium. In January 2018 the couple visited Sweden and Norway. The visits, which were, like others, requested by the Foreign Office, were interpreted to benefit UK-European relations post Brexit. In June 2018, William toured Jordan, Israel and Palestine. William and Catherine toured Pakistan in October 2019, which was the royal family's first visit to the country in 13 years. The tour was a success, helping promote diplomatic relations with Pakistan while also reflecting the couple's personal interests in climate change and the significance of quality education. In November 2020, it was reported that William had tested positive for COVID-19 in April but decided not to alert the media to 'avoid alarming the nation'. The Daily Telegraph reported he had been "very ill" and had isolated away from his family; other sources said that he had not been seriously ill, not bed-ridden and working for most of the time. In December that year, the couple embarked on a tour of England, Scotland, and Wales via the British royal train "to pay tribute to the inspiring work" of communities and charities in 2020. Boris Johnson expressed his support, while Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon criticised the tour, citing travel restrictions; local governments were consulted before planning the tour. In William's capacity as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, he and Catherine toured the country in May 2021. The couple attended the G7 summit for the first time in June 2021 in Cornwall. In March 2022, they embarked on a tour of Belize, the Bahamas and Jamaica as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Reparations for slavery emerged as a major demand of public protesters during the couple's visit. During the unveiling of the National Windrush Monument in London, William described the tour as "an opportunity to reflect" and condemned racism faced by both members of the Windrush generation and British minorities in 2022. In May 2022, he attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time as a counsellor of state, where his father delivered the Queen's Speech on behalf of Elizabeth II. Prince of Wales Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022, and William's father succeeded as Charles III. William, now heir apparent, was created Prince of Wales by his father on 9 September. Controversy regarding the title became a topic of public debate in Wales. By 17 September, a petition calling for the end of the title had received over 30,000 signatures, while a YouGov poll showed 66 per cent support for William to be given the title compared to 22 percent of respondents opposed. On 30 October, Senedd Llywydd Elin Jones noted that an investiture is not a constitutional requirement and suggested that contemporary Wales would deem it unnecessary. Kensington Palace also stated an investiture is "not on the table". As the eldest son of the British monarch, William has inherited the Duchy of Cornwall, which brings him additional income. The duchy is "a £760 million (about US$1.25 billion) entity established in 1337" to provide a private income to the monarch's eldest son. William and Catherine visited Anglesey and Swansea on 27 September 2022, which marked their first visit to Wales since becoming Prince and Princess of Wales. He visited the Senedd in November 2022, meeting the Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford. In February 2023, William and Catherine visited Falmouth, marking their first visit to the region since becoming Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. In March 2023, he undertook a solo visit to Poland during which he visited Rzeszów to meet Polish and British troops and Ukrainian refugees, and had talks with Polish president Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace. In October 2023, William and Catherine condemned the Hamas-led attack on Israel. In February 2024, he visited the headquarters of the British Red Cross, where he met humanitarian aid workers supporting civilians during the Israel–Gaza conflict, and called for an end to the fighting in a statement approved by the UK government. Later that month, William pulled out at the last moment from the thanksgiving service of his godfather, Constantine II of Greece, due to an undisclosed "personal matter". The same month, he visited Western Marble Arch Synagogue to acknowledge the increase in antisemitism and human suffering in the Middle East. Charity work William became aware of HIV/AIDS in the mid-1990s when he accompanied his mother and brother on visits to shelters and clinics for patients. In January 2005, he and Harry volunteered at a British Red Cross aid distribution centre to pack emergency supplies for countries affected by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Later, in December 2005, William spent two weeks in North Wales with Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW). In May 2007, he became patron of MREW and president of the Royal Marsden Hospital, the latter of which was a role previously held by his mother. In July 2007, William and Harry organised the Concert for Diana, in memory of their mother, which benefitted the charities and patronages of Diana, William, and Harry. In October 2008, the brothers embarked on the 1,000 mile eight-day Enduro Africa motorbike ride across South Africa to raise money for Sentebale, UNICEF and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. In 2010 William became a patron of 100 Women in Hedge Funds' philanthropic initiatives for the following three years until 2012. The same year, he succeeded Lord Attenborough as the fifth president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In March 2011, he and Catherine set up a gift fund held by The Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry to allow well-wishers to donate money to charities supporting the armed forces, children, the elderly, art, sport and conservation in lieu of gifts. The Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry is now known as The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales. Humanitarian causes In March 2020, William appeared in a video for the National Emergencies Trust, launching a fundraising appeal to help charities during the pandemic. The appeal raised £11 million in its first week, eventually totalling to £90 million, with the money going out to "front line charities" and to the UK Community Foundations to be distributed among "local community foundations". In April 2020, he officially became patron of the organisation. Later that month, he made a surprise appearance on The Big Night In, a telethon held during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a skit which he held a video call with Stephen Fry, who reprised his role as (a descendant of) Lord Melchett, from the Blackadder series. In December 2020, William and Catherine became joint patrons of NHS Charities Together. In February 2021, he visited a vaccination centre in King's Lynn and later encouraged use of the vaccine, denouncing false information that could cause vaccine hesitancy. In May 2021, William got his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine by NHS staff at the Science Museum in London. In September 2021, it was reported that he had assisted in the evacuation of an Afghan officer, a Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduate and aide to British troops, from Kabul airport, along with over 10 of his family members, during the 2021 Taliban offensive. In March 2022 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, William and Catherine made a donation to help the refugees. In February 2023, they donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) which was helping victims of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake. In July 2023, William became patron of the appeal to launch The Fleming Centre, driving a new global movement to tackle antimicrobial resistance. In July 2024, he and Catherine made donations to help victims of Hurricane Beryl. Conservation William became patron of the Tusk Trust in December 2005, a charity that works towards conserving wildlife and initiating community development across Africa. He carried out his first official duty with the Trust in launching a 5,000-mile (8,000 km) bike ride across the African continent in April 2008. Later, William helped with launching the Tusk Conservation Awards, which have been presented to selected environmental activists annually since 2013. In June 2010, he and his brother visited Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa, undertaking projects relating to wildlife, sport, and young children. In 2013 he succeeded his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, as president of Fields in Trust and transitioned into the role of patron in 2024. He established the United for Wildlife Transport Taskforce in December 2014, with the goal of reducing global illegal wildlife trade. In 2014 Jane Goodall stated that William had expressed the view that all ivory in the royal collection needed to be destroyed. William has occasionally commented on the effects of overpopulation on the wildlife of Africa, but his remarks have been criticised in the media for not taking resource consumption and population density into consideration. After two years of research, William launched the Earthshot Prize in October 2020, designed to provide funding and incentive for environmental solutions over the next decade. Following the launch, he gave a TED Talk on environmental protection and conservation as part of the TED Countdown climate change initiative. Later that month, William took over the patronages of Fauna and Flora International and the British Trust for Ornithology, passed on from his grandparents. In the same month, he appeared in an ITV documentary titled Prince William: A Planet For Us All to discuss environmental issues. In 2021 William made a private donation to the Thin Green Line Foundation, which provides grants for the relatives of conservation park rangers that are killed every year while protecting wildlife. In July 2022, he condemned the murder of South African park ranger Anton Mzimba and asked for the responsible parties to "be brought to justice". In August 2022, William voiced his support for the prison sentence given to a man in the United States responsible for trafficking rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory. He had previously called for harsher punishments and penalties for poachers and smugglers at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in 2018. LGBT rights William has spoken out for LGBT rights as part of his work against cyberbullying, stating the importance of being "proud of the person you are" and discussing the effects of online abuse and discrimination. In 2016 he appeared in the July issue of Attitude and became the first member of the royal family to be featured on the cover of a gay magazine. He was recognised at the British LGBT Awards in May 2017. William hosted a commemorative Pride Month discussion with mental health charity volunteers at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in June 2023. Mental health Since 2009, William has been patron of Child Bereavement UK, which provides support to children and families who have lost a loved one. In 2016 the Royal Foundation launched multiple mental health initiatives, including Heads Together, a campaign led by William, Catherine and Harry to de-stigmatise mental health. Legacy programmes include Mental Health at Work, launched in September 2018 to change the approach to workplace mental health in the United Kingdom, as well as Heads Up, launched in May 2019 in partnership with the Football Association, utilising football to affect the conversation surrounding mental health in adults. Later that month, William and Catherine, together with William's brother Harry and sister-in-law Meghan, launched Shout, the United Kingdom's first 24/7 text messaging service for those who suffer from mental issues. William later volunteered on the crisis helpline during the COVID-19 lockdowns to provide support via text message. He attributes his interest in mental health to his experiences as an air ambulance pilot, his work with the homeless, veterans' welfare, and his wife's anti-addiction advocacy. In March 2020, William and Catherine began supporting a new mental health initiative by the Public Health England agency amidst the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2020, the couple announced Our Frontline, an initiative providing mental health support to emergency medical workers. In September 2020, William established the Emergency Responders Senior Leaders Board, commissioned by the foundation to research the mental health and wellbeing of emergency responders, in partnership with King's College London and the Open University. In May 2021 and 2022, William and Catherine voiced the Mental Health Minute message, which was broadcast on every radio station in the United Kingdom on and asked people to help individuals around them that suffer from loneliness. In October 2022, to mark the World Mental Health Day, the couple took over Newsbeat and interviewed four guests on topics related to mental health. In September 2023, William unveiled two organizations that had partnered with the Duchy of Cornwall to raise better mental well-being and provide mental health services for all its tenants. In October 2023 and to mark World Mental Health Day, he and Catherine took part in a forum for young people in Birmingham, alongside BBC Radio 1 and charity called The Mix, called Exploring our Emotional Worlds continuing their longstanding work to promote mental well-being. In May 2024, he announced a three-year funding package for the charity We Are Farming Minds to provide mental health support for farmers on the Duchy of Cornwall lands. Homelessness In September 2005, William became patron of Centrepoint, a charity that assists the homeless. In December 2009, as part of a Centrepoint-organised event, the prince spent the night in a sleeping bag near Blackfriars Bridge to raise awareness of the experiences of homeless youth. He opened their new facility, Apprenticeship House, in November 2019 to mark their 50th anniversary. William has been patron of homelessness charity The Passage since 2019 after first visiting the centre in 1993 with his mother. In October 2020, he wrote the introduction to the organisation's 40th-anniversary fundraising cookbook, discussing the importance of helping victims of homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020, William volunteered at the charity to help prepare donation bags for homeless residents in emergency hotel accommodations and spoke with residents about their experiences. In 2022 and 2023, he was spotted selling copies of The Big Issue on the streets, copies of which are usually sold by homeless and unemployed people to collect money. In June 2023, William launched Homewards after two years of development, which aims to "finally end homelessness" in the United Kingdom. The five-year initiative aims to tackle homelessness in six pilot locations across the United Kingdom with an initial seed funding allocated for each area by the Royal Foundation, working with existing private sector and grassroots charity partners. The project focuses on early intervention and providing housing to families before other issues, such as abuse and joblessness, are addressed. In February 2024, William, in partnership with Cornish charity St Petrocs, announced plans for building 24 homes on Duchy of Cornwall land in Nansledan to provide temporary accommodation for people experiencing homelessness in the area. Future plans include building more than 400 social rented homes and a further 475 affordable dwellings in South East Faversham. Sport William often plays polo to raise money for charity. He is a fan of football, and supports the English club Aston Villa. He became president of England's Football Association (FA) in May 2006 and vice-royal patron of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) in February 2007, supporting the Queen as patron. The same year, the WRU's decision to name the Prince William Cup drew criticism as some believed it would have been more appropriate to name it after Ray Gravell. William became patron of the WRU and the FA in 2016 and 2024, respectively. In December 2010, William, alongside David Cameron, attended a meeting with FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon at which Chung suggested a vote-trading deal for the right to host the 2018 World Cup in England. The English delegation reported the suggestion to FIFA, considering it a violation of anti-collusion rules. In 2011 William, as president of the English FA, voted against Australia's 2022 FIFA bid and instead voted for South Korea, despite being Australia's future heir. In 2020 he voted against the joint Australia–New Zealand 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup bid and instead voted for Colombia. In February 2021, following an investigation into racism directed at Marcus Rashford, William released a statement as president of the FA, denouncing the "racist abuse... whether on the pitch, in the stands, or on social media" as "despicable" and stating that "we all have a responsibility" to create an environment of tolerance and accountability. In April 2021, William criticised the planned breakaway competition The Super League, adding that he "share[d] the concerns of fans about the proposed Super League and the damage it risks causing to the game we love." In July 2021, he condemned racist attacks against England football players following their loss at the UEFA Euro 2020 finale. In May 2007, William became patron of the English Schools' Swimming Association. In 2012, together with his wife Catherine and brother Harry, William launched Coach Core. The program was set up following the 2012 Olympics and provides apprenticeship opportunities for people who desire to pursue a career as a professional coach. In May 2020, he appeared in a BBC One Documentary titled Football, Prince William and Our Mental Health as a part of a campaign to promote men to discuss their mental issues using football as a common medium. Both William and Harry are enthusiastic motorcyclists; William owns a Ducati 1198 S Corse. In May 2014, William, like his father and grandfather, became president of the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC). He also took part in a bandy event in Stockholm in January 2018. In November 2022, William was criticised by Welsh football followers and Welsh actor Michael Sheen for holding the Prince of Wales title whilst having affiliations with the England national football team, particularly after he presented jerseys to the squad in advance of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in which both Wales and England were placed in the same Group B. William commented that he had supported the England football team from a very young age, but happily supported Welsh rugby union, of which he is patron, over England. In August 2023, he was criticised in segments of the press and social media for not attending 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup final in Australia as president of the FA. Public image William has been one of the most popular members of the British royal family since his birth. Having lived a public life since birth, he was regarded as a "heartthrob" and eligible as a young adult, similar to his father. Ruth La Ferla of The New York Times contrasted William's "refined" and "polite" appeal to Leonardo DiCaprio's "bad-boy" popularity. Following his marriage, William's public image assumed a more "staid" and fatherly demeanour, having "settled into a stable domestic order." Journalist Anne McElvoy has described William's public personality as a "genial presence" with a "tougher side", alongside his mother's "inimitable style". Much of his royal duties focus on "big bet" projects, rather than "plaques and patronages". In 2016 William gave an interview stating his goal was "how do I make the royal family relevant in the next 20 years ... that's the challenge for me". In April 2011, Time magazine listed him as one of the most influential people in the world alongside his then-newlywed wife Catherine. In August 2023, Gallup, Inc. named him as the most popular public figure in the US after conducting a survey that asked for people's views on 15 prominent individuals. He was found to be the most popular member of the royal family by statistics and polling company YouGov in December 2022 and September 2023, and as the second most popular in April 2024. Privacy and the media The death of William's mother while being chased by the paparazzi in August 1997 has since influenced his attitude towards the media. He and Catherine have often requested that, when off-duty, their privacy should be respected. In 2005 William spoke with ITV reporter Tom Bradby and concluded that it was likely that their voicemails were being accessed. An investigation under then Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke concluded that the compromised voice mail accounts belonged to William's aides, including Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, and not the prince himself. However, Clive Goodman later stated that he had hacked William's phone on 35 occasions. William later sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of News of the World and The Sun, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement in 2020. He and his brother Harry brought a claim privately through their mutual attorneys, but Harry later pursued his case separately with a new solicitor. In 2005, after his then-girlfriend Catherine Middleton was chased by the paparazzi on her way to a job interview, William consulted Middleton and her father and wrote a legal letter to newspapers requesting that they respect her privacy. As media attention increased around the time of Middleton's 25th birthday in January 2007, he issued a public statement mentioning that "the situation is proving unbearable for all those concerned." In October 2007, William issued a public statement via his press secretary complaining about the "aggressive pursuit" by "photographers on motorcycles, in vehicles and on foot" while the couple were leaving a London nightclub and later driving in his car. Following the statement, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express all decided against using the paparazzi photos of the couple, but The Sun published photos taken before the couple's car had left. The statement prompted the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to issue a warning, asking editors not to publish photographs which were taken through harassment. In April 2009, William's lawyers obtained an apology from The Daily Star after the tabloid had claimed he had "wrecked" a $2m plane during his pilot training. In September 2012, the French edition of Closer and Italian gossip magazine Chi published photographs of Catherine sun-bathing topless while on holiday at the Château d'Autet in Provence. William and Catherine filed a criminal complaint with the French prosecution department and launched a claim for civil damages at the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre. The following day the courts granted an injunction against Closer prohibiting further publication of the photographs and announced that a criminal investigation would be initiated. In September 2017, Closer was fined €100,000 and its editor Laurence Pieau and owner Ernesto Mauri were each fined €45,000. In October 2014, William and Catherine sent a legal letter to a freelance photographer who had put their son George and his nanny "under surveillance", asking the individual to stop "harassing and following" them. In August 2015, Kensington Palace published a letter detailing what it stated were the "dangerous" and invasive efforts of the media to get paparazzi pictures of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. In November 2016, William issued a statement supporting Prince Harry and his then-girlfriend, Meghan Markle, following their complaints about the press intrusion, stating that he "understands the situation concerning privacy and supports the need for Prince Harry to support those closest to him." During a visit to the BBC studios in central London in November 2018, he publicly criticised the social media firms' approach to handling "misinformation and conspiracy" and added, "Their self-image is so grounded in their positive power for good that they seem unable to engage in constructive discussion about the social problems they are creating". In June 2022, a three-minute video of William confronting Terry Harris, a paparazzi photographer, was posted on Harris' YouTube channel. It was recorded by Harris in January 2021 and shows William arguing with Harris as the latter attempts to film William's family on a bike ride near Anmer Hall. Kensington Palace described the video as a breach of the family's privacy and asked for it to be removed from public websites. The couple's lawyers also contacted the photographer, who claimed he was on public roads and had filmed the video after hearing about allegations that the couple had broken the "rule of six" as they toured a public attraction at Sandringham while William's uncle and aunt, then Earl and Countess of Wessex, and their children happened to be in the same spot. Titles, styles, and honours Titles and styles William has been a British prince since birth, and was known as "Prince William of Wales" until April 2011. He was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus by his grandmother, Elizabeth II, on the day of his wedding. The letters patent granting these titles were issued on 26 May that year. As the eldest son of the monarch, William automatically became Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland on the accession of his father on 8 September 2022. From 8 to 9 September, William was styled as "His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge". On 9 September, Charles announced the creation of William as Prince of Wales, the traditional title for the male heir apparent to the British monarch. William has since been known as "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales", except in Scotland, where he is called "His Royal Highness the Duke of Rothesay" instead. The letters patent formally granting him this title and that of Earl of Chester were issued on 13 February 2023. Honours William is a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (KG), an Extra Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle (KT), Great Master of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB), a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (PC), and a Personal Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the sovereign. Ancestry William's ancestry is royal and aristocratic. Patrilineally, he is a member of the House of Windsor and also descends from the House of Oldenburg, one of Europe's oldest royal houses. More specifically, he descends from the cadet branch known as the House of Glücksburg. Through his mother, William descends from the Earls Spencer – a cadet branch of the Spencer family descended from the Earls of Sunderland; the senior branch are now also Dukes of Marlborough; the Barons Fermoy; and more anciently from Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, and Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond – two illegitimate sons of King Charles II. As king, William would be the first monarch since the death of Anne in 1714 to undisputedly descend from Charles I and the first to descend from Charles II. William descends matrilineally from Eliza Kewark, a housekeeper for his 18th-century ancestor Theodore Forbes – a Scottish merchant who worked for the East India Company in Surat. She is variously described in contemporary documents as "a dark-skinned native woman", "an Armenian woman from Bombay", and "Mrs. Forbesian". Genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner assumed Kewark was Armenian. In June 2013, it was reported that genealogical DNA tests on two of William's distant matrilineal cousins confirm Kewark was matrilineally of Indian descent. Bibliography Book contributions "Preface", in: Hurd, Douglas (2015). Elizabeth II: The Steadfast. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-1419794-10. "Introduction", in: Butfield, Colin; Hughes, Jonnie (2021). Earthshot: How to Save Our Planet. John Murray. ISBN 978-1-5293886-26. "Foreword", in: Martell, Peter (2022). Flowers for Elephants: How a Conservation Movement in Kenya Offers Lessons for Us All. C. Hurst (Publishers) Limited. ISBN 978-1-7873869-38. "Foreword", in: GCHQ (2022). Puzzles for Spies. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-0-2415799-09. "Foreword", in: Butfield, Colin; Hughes, Jonnie (2023). The Earthshot Prize: A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers: Solutions to Repair our Planet. Hachette Children's. ISBN 978-1-5263646-92. "Foreword", in: Kent-Payne, Vaughan (2024). They Also Served: 200 People Who Trained At Sandhurst. Sandhurst Trust. Archived from the original on 4 February 2024. "Foreword", in: Burrow, Lindsey (2025). Take Care: A Memoir of Love, Family and Never Giving Up. Century. ISBN 978-1-5299413-33. Authored letters and articles The Duke of Cambridge (7 September 2020). "An open letter written by The Duke of Cambridge to mark Air Ambulance Week 2020". The Royal Family. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. Prince William; Michael Bloomberg (28 September 2021). "We're in a race to save Earth from climate change". USA Today. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. The Duke of Cambridge (20 June 2022). "Prince William: 'Why I wanted to work with The Big Issue'". The Big Issue. Archived from the original on 2 October 2023. See also Royal William, a German red rose named after Prince William shortly after his birth List of covers of Time magazine (1990s), (2010s) Footnotes References Further reading Books Jobson, Robert (2010). William & Kate: The Love Story. John Blake Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84454-736-4. Lacey, Robert (2020). Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult. William Collins. ISBN 978-0008408527. Morton, Andrew (2011). William & Catherine: Their Story. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-64340-9. Junor, Penny (2013). Prince William: The Man Who Will Be King. Pegasus. ISBN 978-1-60598-442-1. Graham, Tim; Archer, Peter (2003), William: HRH Prince William of Wales, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-74-324857-0 Junor, Penny (2013), Prince William: Born to be King, Hodder Paperbacks, ISBN 978-1-44-472041-9 Articles Campbell, Alastair (29 May 2017). "Prince William on Diana, Princess of Wales: In the most candid interview he has ever given, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge speaks". GQ. Hedges, Mark (21 November 2018). "The Duke of Cambridge on the countryside, wildlife and passing on his father's inspiring example to George, Charlotte and Louis". Country Life. External links The Prince of Wales at the official website of the British royal family The Duke of Cornwall at the official website of the Duchy of Cornwall The Prince of Wales at the official website of the Government of Canada Portraits of William, Prince of Wales at the National Portrait Gallery, London Appearances on C-SPAN Prince William at IMDb

Malcolm_Bradbury

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Bradbury

Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury, (7 September 1932 – 27 November 2000) was an English author and academic. Life Bradbury was born in Sheffield, the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother. The family later moved to Nottingham and in 1943 Bradbury attended West Bridgford Grammar School, where he remained until 1950. He read English at University College, Leicester, gaining a first-class degree in 1953. He continued his studies at Queen Mary College, University of London, where he gained his MA in 1955. Between 1955 and 1958, Bradbury moved between teaching posts with the University of Manchester and Indiana University in the United States. He returned to England in 1958 for a major heart operation; such was his heart condition that he was not expected to live beyond middle age. In 1959, while in hospital, he completed his first novel, Eating People is Wrong. Bradbury married Elizabeth Salt and they had two sons. He took up his first teaching post as an adult-education tutor at the University of Hull. With his study on Evelyn Waugh in 1962 he began his career of writing and editing critical books. From 1961 to 1965 he taught at the University of Birmingham. He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the MA in Creative Writing course, attended by both Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983 and Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987. He retired from academic life in 1995. Bradbury became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to literature. Bradbury died at Priscilla Bacon Lodge, Colman Hospital, Norwich, on 27 November 2000, attended by his wife and their two sons, Matthew and Dominic. He was buried on 4 December 2000 in the churchyard of St Mary's parish church, Tasburgh, near Norwich where the Bradburys owned a second home. Though he was not an orthodox religious believer, he respected the traditions and socio-cultural role of the Church of England and enjoyed visiting churches in the spirit of Philip Larkin's poem, "Church Going". Works Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American. However, he is best known to a wider public as a novelist. Although often compared with his contemporary David Lodge, a friend who has also written campus novels, Bradbury's books are consistently darker in mood and less playful both in style and language. In 1986, he wrote a short humorous book titled Why Come to Slaka?, a parody of travel books, dealing with Slaka, the fictional Eastern European country that is the setting for his novel Rates of Exchange, a 1983 novel that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Bradbury also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train (and its sequel, The Gravy Train Goes East, which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends, Kingsley Amis's The Green Man, and the penultimate Inspector Morse episode The Wench is Dead. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode "Foreign Bodies" was screened on BBC One on 15 July 2000. His work was often humorous and ironic, mocking academe, British culture, and communism, usually with a picaresque tone. Selected bibliography Eating People is Wrong (1959) Writers and Critics: Evelyn Waugh (Oliver and Boyd, 1964) Stepping Westward (1965) Contemporary Criticism (1970) The Social Context of Modern English Literature (1971) Possibilities (1973) The History Man (1975) Who Do You Think You Are? (1976) — a collection of short stories All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go (1982) The After Dinner Game (1982) Rates of Exchange (1983) – includes description of a performance of the imaginary opera Vedontakal Vrop, also described in Why Come to Slaka? The Modern American Novel (1983) Why Come to Slaka? (1986) Cuts (1987) Mensonge (1987) My Strange Quest for Mensonge: Structuralism's Hidden Hero (1987) No Not Bloomsbury (1987) Unsent Letters (1988) The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988) Doctor Criminale (1992) The Modern British Novel (1993) Dangerous Pilgrimages: Trans-Atlantic Mythologies and the Novel (1995) To the Hermitage (2000) See also American Studies in Britain References External links Malcolm Bradbury at IMDb UEA MA in Creative Writing Malcolm Bradbury Archive, University of East Anglia Lise Jaillant, "Myth Maker: Malcolm Bradbury and the Creation of Creative Writing at UEA." New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing

England

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers approximately 62%, and over 100 smaller adjacent islands. It has land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic. It takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The Kingdom of England, which included Wales after 1535, ceased to be a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union brought into effect a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created the Kingdom of Great Britain. England is the origin of the English language, the English legal system (which served as the basis for the common law systems of many other countries), association football, and the Anglican branch of Christianity; its parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England is home to the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world: the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, and the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209. Both universities are ranked among the most prestigious in the world. England's terrain chiefly consists of low hills and plains, especially in the centre and south. Upland and mountainous terrain is mostly found in the north and west, including Dartmoor, the Lake District, the Pennines, and the Shropshire Hills. The country's capital is London, the metropolitan area of which has a population of 14.2 million as of 2021, representing the United Kingdom's largest metropolitan area. England's population of 56.3 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century. Toponymy The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. They came from the Angeln region of what is now the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was then used to mean "the land inhabited by the English", and it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was then part of the English kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years later the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used. The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe that was less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons (Eald-Seaxe) of Old Saxony in Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England (Sasunn); similarly, the Welsh name for the English language is "Saesneg". A romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend. Albion is also applied to England in a more poetic capacity, though its original meaning is the island of Britain as a whole. History Prehistory The earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago. Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years. After the last ice age only large mammals such as mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros remained. Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. The sea level was lower than the present day and Britain was connected by land bridge to Ireland and Eurasia. As the seas rose, it was separated from Ireland 10,000 years ago and from Eurasia two millennia later. The Beaker culture arrived around 2,500 BC, introducing drinking and food vessels constructed from clay, as well as vessels used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores. It was during this time that major Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge (phase III) and Avebury were constructed. By heating together tin and copper, which were in abundance in the area, the Beaker culture people made bronze, and later iron from iron ores. The development of iron smelting allowed the construction of better ploughs, advancing agriculture (for instance, with Celtic fields), as well as the production of more effective weapons. During the Iron Age, Celtic culture, deriving from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, arrived from Central Europe. Brythonic was the spoken language during this time. Society was tribal; according to Ptolemy's Geographia there were around 20 tribes in the area. Like other regions on the edge of the Empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans. Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic attempted to invade twice in 55 BC; although largely unsuccessful, he managed to set up a client king from the Trinovantes. Ancient history The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD during the reign of Emperor Claudius, subsequently conquering much of Britain, and the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as Britannia province. The best-known of the native tribes who attempted to resist were the Catuvellauni led by Caratacus. Later, an uprising led by Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, ended with Boudica's suicide following her defeat at the Battle of Watling Street. The author of one study of Roman Britain suggested that from 43 AD to 84 AD, the Roman invaders killed somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 people from a population of perhaps 2,000,000. This era saw a Greco-Roman culture prevail with the introduction of Roman law, Roman architecture, aqueducts, sewers, many agricultural items and silk. In the 3rd century, Emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (now York), where Constantine was subsequently proclaimed emperor a century later. There is debate about when Christianity was first introduced; it was no later than the 4th century, probably much earlier. According to Bede, missionaries were sent from Rome by Eleutherius at the request of the chieftain Lucius of Britain in 180 AD, to settle differences as to Eastern and Western ceremonials, which were disturbing the church. There are traditions linked to Glastonbury claiming an introduction through Joseph of Arimathea, while others claim through Lucius of Britain. By 410, during the decline of the Roman Empire, Britain was left exposed by the end of Roman rule in Britain and the withdrawal of Roman army units, to defend the frontiers in continental Europe and partake in civil wars. Celtic Christian monastic and missionary movements flourished. This period of Christianity was influenced by ancient Celtic culture in its sensibilities, polity, practices and theology. Local "congregations" were centred in the monastic community and monastic leaders were more like chieftains, as peers, rather than in the more hierarchical system of the Roman-dominated church. Middle Ages Roman military withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province. These groups then began to settle in increasing numbers over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, initially in the eastern part of the country. Their advance was contained for some decades after the Britons' victory at the Battle of Mount Badon, but subsequently resumed, overrunning the fertile lowlands of Britain and reducing the area under Brittonic control to a series of separate enclaves in the more rugged country to the west by the end of the 6th century. Contemporary texts describing this period are extremely scarce, giving rise to its description as a Dark Age. Details of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain are consequently subject to considerable disagreement; the emerging consensus is that it occurred on a large scale in the south and east but was less substantial to the north and west, where Celtic languages continued to be spoken even in areas under Anglo-Saxon control. Roman-dominated Christianity had, in general, been replaced in the conquered territories by Anglo-Saxon paganism, but was reintroduced by missionaries from Rome led by Augustine from 597. Disputes between the Roman- and Celtic-dominated forms of Christianity ended in victory for the Roman tradition at the Council of Whitby (664), which was ostensibly about tonsures (clerical haircuts) and the date of Easter, but more significantly, about the differences in Roman and Celtic forms of authority, theology, and practice. During the settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex. Over the following centuries, this process of political consolidation continued. The 7th century saw a struggle for hegemony between Northumbria and Mercia, which in the 8th century gave way to Mercian preeminence. In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the Danes culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under Alfred the Great was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors, it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the Danelaw. This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under Æthelstan in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by Eadred in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with the conquest of this united kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and again by his son Cnut in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived North Sea Empire that also included Denmark and Norway. However, the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042. A dispute over the succession to Edward led to an unsuccessful Norwegian Invasion in September 1066 close to York in the North, and the successful Norman Conquest in October 1066, accomplished by an army led by Duke William of Normandy invading at Hastings late September 1066. The Normans themselves originated from Scandinavia and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new French-speaking aristocracy, whose speech had a profound and permanent effect on the English language. Subsequently, the House of Plantagenet from Anjou inherited the English throne under Henry II, adding England to the budding Angevin Empire of fiefs the family had inherited in France including Aquitaine. They reigned for three centuries, some noted monarchs being Richard I, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V. The period saw changes in trade and legislation, including the signing of Magna Carta, an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and protect the privileges of freemen. Catholic monasticism flourished, providing philosophers, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded with royal patronage. The Principality of Wales became a Plantagenet fief during the 13th century and the Lordship of Ireland was given to the English monarchy by the Pope. During the 14th century, the Plantagenets and the House of Valois claimed to be legitimate claimants to the House of Capet and of France; the two powers clashed in the Hundred Years' War. The Black Death epidemic hit England; starting in 1348, it eventually killed up to half of England's inhabitants. Between 1453 and 1487, a civil war known as the War of the Roses waged between the two branches of the royal family, the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family the Tudors, a branch of the Lancastrians headed by Henry Tudor who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field where the Yorkist king Richard III was killed. Early modern period During the Tudor period, England began to develop naval skills, and exploration intensified in the Age of Discovery. Henry VIII broke from communion with the Catholic Church, over issues relating to his divorce, under the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England. In contrast with much of European Protestantism, the roots of the split were more political than theological. He also legally incorporated his ancestral land Wales into the Kingdom of England with the 1535–1542 acts. There were internal religious conflicts during the reigns of Henry's daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The former took the country back to Catholicism while the latter broke from it again, forcefully asserting the supremacy of Anglicanism. The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor age of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I ("the Virgin Queen"). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history that represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of great art, drama, poetry, music and literature. England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government. Competing with Spain, the first English colony in the Americas was founded in 1585 by explorer Walter Raleigh in Virginia and named Roanoke. The Roanoke colony failed and is known as the lost colony after it was found abandoned on the return of the late-arriving supply ship. With the East India Company, England also competed with the Dutch and French in the East. During the Elizabethan period, England was at war with Spain. An armada sailed from Spain in 1588 as part of a wider plan to invade England and re-establish a Catholic monarchy. The plan was thwarted by bad coordination, stormy weather and successful harrying attacks by an English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham. This failure did not end the threat: Spain launched two further armadas, in 1596 and 1597, but both were driven back by storms. Union with Scotland The political structure of the island changed in 1603, when the King of Scots, James VI, a kingdom which had been a long-time rival to English interests, inherited the throne of England as James I, thereby creating a personal union. He styled himself King of Great Britain, although this had no basis in English law. Under the auspices of James VI and I the Authorised King James Version of the Holy Bible was published in 1611. It was the standard version of the Bible read by most Protestant Christians for four hundred years until modern revisions were produced in the 20th century. Based on conflicting political, religious and social positions, the English Civil War was fought between the supporters of Parliament and those of King Charles I, known colloquially as Roundheads and Cavaliers respectively. This was an interwoven part of the wider multifaceted Wars of the Three Kingdoms, involving Scotland and Ireland. The Parliamentarians were victorious, Charles I was executed and the kingdom replaced by the Commonwealth. Leader of the Parliament forces, Oliver Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector in 1653; a period of personal rule followed. After Cromwell's death and the resignation of his son Richard as Lord Protector, Charles II was invited to return as monarch in 1660, in a move called the Restoration. With the reopening of theatres, fine arts, literature and performing arts flourished throughout the Restoration of the "Merry Monarch" Charles II. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was constitutionally established that King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, also that the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without the prior approval of Parliament. Also since that time, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is sitting, which is annually commemorated at the State Opening of Parliament by the British monarch when the doors of the House of Commons are slammed in the face of the monarch's messenger, symbolising the rights of Parliament and its independence from the monarch. With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, science was greatly encouraged. In 1666 the Great Fire of London gutted the city of London, but it was rebuilt shortly afterward with many significant buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren. By the mid-to-late 17th century, two political factions had emerged – the Tories and Whigs. Though the Tories initially supported Catholic king James II, some of them, along with the Whigs, during the Revolution of 1688 invited the Dutch Prince William of Orange to defeat James and become the king. Some English people, especially in the north, were Jacobites and continued to support James and his sons. Under the Stuart dynasty England expanded in trade, finance and prosperity. The Royal Navy developed Europe's largest merchant fleet. After the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed, the two countries joined in political union, to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. To accommodate the union, institutions such as the law and national churches of each remained separate. Late modern and contemporary periods Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire. Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development. The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in the canal age in Britain. In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway – the Stockton and Darlington Railway – opened to the public. During the Industrial Revolution, many workers moved from England's countryside to new and expanding urban industrial areas to work in factories, for instance at Birmingham and Manchester, with the latter the world's first industrial city. England maintained relative stability throughout the French Revolution, under George III and William Pitt the Younger. The regency of George IV is noted for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon planned to invade from the south-east; however, this failed to manifest and the Napoleonic forces were defeated by the British: at sea by Horatio Nelson, and on land by Arthur Wellesley. The major victory at the Battle of Trafalgar confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic Wars fostered a concept of Britishness and a united national British people, shared with the English, Scots and Welsh. London became the largest and most populous metropolitan area in the world during the Victorian era, and trade within the British Empire – as well as the standing of the British military and navy – was prestigious. Technologically, this era saw many innovations that proved key to the United Kingdom's power and prosperity. Political agitation at home from radicals such as the Chartists and the suffragettes enabled legislative reform and universal suffrage. Power shifts in east-central Europe led to World War I; hundreds of thousands of English soldiers died fighting for the United Kingdom as part of the Allies. Two decades later, in World War II, the United Kingdom was again one of the Allies. Developments in warfare technology saw many cities damaged by air-raids during the Blitz. Following the war, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation, and there was a speeding-up of technological innovations; automobiles became the primary means of transport and Frank Whittle's development of the jet engine led to wider air travel. Residential patterns were altered in England by private motoring, and by the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, providing publicly funded health care to all permanent residents free at the point of need. Combined, these prompted the reform of local government in England in the mid-20th century. Since the 20th century, there has been significant population movement to England, mostly from other parts of the British Isles, but also from the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian subcontinent. Since the 1970s there has been a large move away from manufacturing and an increasing emphasis on the service industry. As part of the United Kingdom, the area joined a common market initiative called the European Economic Community which became the European Union. Since the late 20th century the administration of the United Kingdom has moved towards devolved governance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales continues to exist as a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. Devolution has stimulated a greater emphasis on a more English-specific identity and patriotism. There is no devolved English government, but an attempt to create a similar system on a sub-regional basis was rejected by referendum. Governance Politics England is part of the United Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. There has not been a government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union, joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England. Today England is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, although other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments. There has been debate about how to counterbalance this in England. Originally it was planned that various regions of England would be devolved, but following the proposal's rejection by the North East in a 2004 referendum, this has not been carried out. In the House of Commons which is the lower house of the British Parliament based at the Palace of Westminster, there are 543 members of parliament (MPs) for constituencies in England, out of the 650 total. England is represented by 347 MPs from the Labour Party, 116 from the Conservative Party, 65 from the Liberal Democrats, five for Reform UK and four for the Green Party of England and Wales. Law The English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States (except Louisiana). Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of the Courts of England and Wales continued, under the Treaty of Union, as a separate legal system from the one used in Scotland. The general essence of English law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent – stare decisis – to the facts before them. The court system is headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice for civil cases, and the Crown Court for criminal cases. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest court for criminal and civil cases in England and Wales. It was created in 2009 after constitutional changes, taking over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. A decision of the Supreme Court is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, which must follow its directions. The Secretary of State for Justice is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary, the court system and prisons and probation in England. Crime increased between 1981 and 1995 but fell by 42% in the period 1995–2006. The prison population doubled over the same period, giving it one of the highest incarceration rates in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000. His Majesty's Prison Service, reporting to the Ministry of Justice, manages most prisons, housing 81,309 prisoners in England and Wales as of September 2022. Subdivisions The subdivisions of England consist of up to four levels of subnational division, controlled through a variety of types of administrative entities created for the purposes of local government. Outside the London region, England's highest tier is the 48 ceremonial counties. These are used primarily as a geographical frame of reference. Of these, 38 developed gradually since the Middle Ages; these were reformed to 51 in 1974 and to their current number in 1996. Each has a Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff; these posts are used to represent the British monarch locally. Some counties, such as Herefordshire, are only divided further into civil parishes. The royal county of Berkshire and the metropolitan counties have different types of status to other ceremonial counties. The second tier is made up of combined authorities and the 27 county-tier shire counties. In 1974, all ceremonial counties were two-tier; and with the metropolitan county tier phased out, the 1996 reform separated the ceremonial county and the administrative county tier. England is also divided into local government districts. The district can align to a ceremonial county, or be a district tier within a shire county, be a royal or metropolitan borough, have borough or city status, or be a unitary authority. At the community level, much of England is divided into civil parishes with their own councils; in Greater London only one such parish, Queen's Park, exists as of 2014 after they were abolished in 1965 until legislation allowed their recreation in 2007. London From 1994 until the early 2010s England was divided for a few purposes into regions; a 1998 referendum for the London Region created the London Assembly two years later. A failed 2004 North East England devolution referendum cancelled further regional assembly devolution with the regional structure outside London abolished. Ceremonially and administratively, the region is divided between the City of London and Greater London; these are further divided into the 32 London Boroughs and the 25 Wards of the City of London. Geography Landscape and rivers Geographically, England includes the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus such offshore islands as the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly. It is bordered by two other countries of the United Kingdom: to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. England is closer than any other part of mainland Britain to the European continent. It is separated from France (Hauts-de-France) by a 21-mile (34 km) sea gap, though the two countries are connected by the Channel Tunnel near Folkestone. England also has shores on the Irish Sea, North Sea and Atlantic Ocean. The ports of London, Liverpool, and Newcastle lie on the tidal rivers Thames, Mersey and Tyne respectively. At 220 miles (350 km), the Severn is the longest river flowing through England. It empties into the Bristol Channel and is notable for its Severn Bore (a tidal bore), which can reach 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height. However, the longest river entirely in England is the Thames, which is 215 miles (346 km) in length. There are many lakes in England; the largest is Windermere, within the aptly named Lake District. Most of England's landscape consists of low hills and plains, with upland and mountainous terrain in the north and west of the country. The northern uplands include the Pennines, a chain of uplands dividing east and west, the Lake District mountains in Cumbria, and the Cheviot Hills, straddling the border between England and Scotland. The highest point in England, at 978 metres (3,209 ft), is Scafell Pike in the Lake District. The Shropshire Hills are near Wales while Dartmoor and Exmoor are two upland areas in the south-west of the country. The approximate dividing line between terrain types is often indicated by the Tees–Exe line. The Pennines, known as the "backbone of England", are the oldest range of mountains in the country, originating from the end of the Paleozoic Era around 300 million years ago. Their geological composition includes, among others, sandstone and limestone, and also coal. There are karst landscapes in calcite areas such as parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. The Pennine landscape is high moorland in upland areas, indented by fertile valleys of the region's rivers. They contain two national parks, the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District. In the West Country, Dartmoor and Exmoor of the Southwest Peninsula include upland moorland supported by granite. The English Lowlands are in the central and southern regions of the country, consisting of green rolling hills, including the Cotswold Hills, Chiltern Hills, North and South Downs; where they meet the sea they form white rock exposures such as the cliffs of Dover. This also includes relatively flat plains such as the Salisbury Plain, Somerset Levels, South Coast Plain and The Fens. Climate England has a temperate maritime climate: it is mild with temperatures not much lower than 0 °C (32 °F) in winter and not much higher than 32 °C (90 °F) in summer. The weather is damp relatively frequently and is changeable. The coldest months are January and February, the latter particularly on the English coast, while July is normally the warmest month. Months with mild to warm weather are May, June, September and October. Rainfall is spread fairly evenly throughout the year. Important influences on the climate of England are its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, its northern latitude and the warming of the sea by the Gulf Stream. Rainfall is higher in the west, and parts of the Lake District receive more rain than anywhere else in the country. Since weather records began, the highest temperature recorded was 40.3 °C (104.5 °F) on 19 July 2022 at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, while the lowest was −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F) on 10 January 1982 in Edgmond, Shropshire. Nature and wildlife The fauna of England is similar to that of other areas in the British Isles with a wide range of vertebrate and invertebrate life in a diverse range of habitats. National nature reserves in England are designated by Natural England as key places for wildlife and natural features in England. They were established to protect the most significant areas of habitat and of geological formations. NNRs are managed on behalf of the nation, many by Natural England themselves, but also by non-governmental organisations, including the members of The Wildlife Trusts partnership, the National Trust, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. There are 221 NNRs in England covering 110,000 hectares (1,100 square kilometres). Often they contain rare species or nationally important populations of plants and animals. . The Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body, established in 1995 and sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the minister responsible for environmental protection, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in England.England has a temperate oceanic climate in most areas, lacking extremes of cold or heat, but does have a few small areas of subarctic and warmer areas in the South West. Towards the North of England the climate becomes colder and most of England's mountains and high hills are located here and have a major impact on the climate and thus the local fauna of the areas. Deciduous woodlands are common across all of England and provide a great habitat for much of England's wildlife, but these give way in northern and upland areas of England to coniferous forests (mainly plantations) which also benefit certain forms of wildlife. Some species have adapted to the expanded urban environment, particularly the red fox, which is the most successful urban mammal after the brown rat, and other animals such as common wood pigeon, both of which thrive in urban and suburban areas. Major conurbations The Greater London Built-up Area is by far the largest urban area in England and one of the busiest cities in the world. It is considered a global city and has a population larger than any other country in the United Kingdom besides England itself. Other urban areas of considerable size and influence tend to be in northern England or the English Midlands. There are 50 settlements which have designated city status in England, while the wider United Kingdom has 66. While many cities in England are quite large, such as Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Bradford, Nottingham, population size is not a prerequisite for city status. Traditionally the status was given to towns with diocesan cathedrals, so there are smaller cities like Wells, Ely, Ripon, Truro and Chichester. Economy England's economy is one of the largest and most dynamic in the world, with an average GDP per capita of £37,852 in 2022. HM Treasury, led by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and economic policy. Usually regarded as a mixed market economy, it has adopted many free market principles, yet maintains an advanced social welfare infrastructure. The economy of England is the largest part of the UK's economy. England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry, and the software industry. London, home to the London Stock Exchange, the United Kingdom's main stock exchange and the largest in Europe, is England's financial centre, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations being based there. London is the largest financial centre in Europe and as of 2014 is the second largest in the world. London has also been named as the fastest growing technology hub in Europe, with England having over 100 unique tech companies with a value of $1 billion or more. The Bank of England, founded in 1694 as private banker to the government of England and a state-owned institution since 1946, is the United Kingdom's central bank. The bank has a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, although not in other parts of the UK. The government has devolved responsibility to the bank's Monetary Policy Committee for managing the monetary policy of the country and setting interest rates. England is highly industrialised, but since the 1970s there has been a decline in traditional heavy and manufacturing industries, and an increasing emphasis on a more service industry oriented economy. Tourism has become a significant industry, attracting millions of visitors to England each year. The export part of the economy is dominated by pharmaceuticals, automotives, crude oil and petroleum from the English parts of North Sea oil along with Wytch Farm, aircraft engines and alcoholic beverages. The creative industries accounted for 7 per cent GVA in 2005 and grew at an average of 6 per cent per annum between 1997 and 2005. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised and efficient by European standards, producing 60% of food needs with only 2% of the labour force. Two-thirds of production is devoted to livestock, the remainder to arable crops. The main crops that are grown are wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and sugar beets. England retains a significant fishing industry. Its fleets bring home a variety of fish, ranging from sole to herring. England is also rich in natural resources including coal, petroleum, natural gas, tin, limestone, iron ore, salt, clay, chalk, gypsum, lead, and silica. Science and technology Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Robert Hooke, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Edward Jenner, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Young, Christopher Wren and Richard Dawkins. England was a leading centre of the Scientific Revolution from the 17th century. As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering. Thomas Newcomen's steam engine helped spawn the Industrial Revolution. The Father of Railways, George Stephenson, built the first public inter-city railway line in the world, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. With his role in the marketing and manufacturing of the steam engine, and invention of modern coinage, Matthew Boulton (business partner of James Watt) is regarded as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in history. The physician Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine is said to have "saved more lives ... than were lost in all the wars of mankind since the beginning of recorded history." Inventions and discoveries of the English include the jet engine; the first industrial spinning machine; the first computer and the first modern computer; the World Wide Web along with HTML; the first successful human blood transfusion; the motorised vacuum cleaner; the lawn mower; the seat belt; the hovercraft; the electric motor; steam engines; and theories such as the Darwinian theory of evolution and atomic theory. Newton developed the ideas of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics, and calculus, and Robert Hooke his eponymously named law of elasticity. Other inventions include the iron plate railway, the thermosiphon, tarmac, the rubber band, the mousetrap, "cat's eye" road marker, joint development of the light bulb, steam locomotives, the modern seed drill and many modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering. The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. Founded on 28 November 1660, It is the oldest national scientific institution in the world. The Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded in 1799 by leading English scientists, including Henry Cavendish. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a metric system was invented by John Wilkins in 1668. Scientific research and development remains important in the universities of England, with many establishing science parks to facilitate production and co-operation with industry. Cambridge is the most intensive research cluster for science and technology in the world. In 2022, the UK produced 6.3 per cent of the world's scientific research papers and had a 10.5 per cent share of scientific citations, the third highest in the world (after the United States and China). Scientific journals produced in England include Nature, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation has responsibility for science in England. Transport The Department for Transport is the government body responsible for overseeing transport in England. The department is run by the Secretary of State for Transport. England has a dense and modern transportation infrastructure. There are many motorways in England, and many other trunk roads, such as the A1 Great North Road, which runs through eastern England from London to Newcastle (much of this section is motorway) and onward to the Scottish border. The longest motorway in England is the M6, from Rugby through the North West up to the Anglo-Scottish border, a distance of 232 miles (373 km). Other major routes include: the M1 from London to Leeds, the M25 which encircles London, the M60 which encircles Manchester, the M4 from London to South Wales, the M62 from Liverpool via Manchester to East Yorkshire, and the M5 from Birmingham to Bristol and the South West. Bus transport across the country is widespread; major companies include Arriva, FirstGroup, Go-Ahead Group, Mobico Group, Rotala and Stagecoach Group. Bus rapid transit originated in England with the Runcorn Busway opening in 1971. The red double-decker buses in London have become a symbol of England. National Cycle Route offers cycling routes nationally. Rail transport in England is the oldest in the world: passenger railways originated in England in 1825. Much of Britain's 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of rail network lies in England, covering the country fairly extensively. There is rail transport access to France and Belgium through an undersea rail link, the Channel Tunnel, which was completed in 1994. Great British Railways is a planned state-owned public body that will oversee rail transport in Great Britain from 2024. The Office of Rail and Road is responsible for the economic and safety regulation of England's railways. Crossrail was Europe's largest construction project with a £15 billion projected cost, opened in 2022. High Speed 2, a new high-speed north–south railway line, is under construction. There is a rapid transit network in two English cities: the London Underground, and the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and Sunderland. There are several extensive tram networks, such as the Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram, West Midlands Metro, Nottingham Express Transit, and Tramlink in South London. England also has extensive domestic and international aviation links. The largest airport is Heathrow, which is the world's second busiest airport measured by number of international passengers. By sea there is ferry transport, both local and international, including from Liverpool to Ireland and the Isle of Man, and Hull to the Netherlands and Belgium. There are around 4,400 miles (7,100 km) of navigable waterways in England, half of which is owned by the Canal & River Trust, however, water transport is very limited. The River Thames is the major waterway in England, with imports and exports focused at the Port of Tilbury in the Thames Estuary, one of the United Kingdom's three major ports. Energy Successive governments have outlined numerous commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Notably, the UK is one of the best sites in Europe for wind energy, and wind power production is its fastest growing supply. Wind power contributed 26.8% of UK electricity generation in 2022. England is home to Hornsea 2, the largest offshore wind farm in the world, situated in waters roughly 89 kilometres off the coast of Yorkshire. The Climate Change Act 2008 was passed in Parliament with an overwhelming majority across political parties. It sets out emission reduction targets that the UK must comply with legally. It represents the first global legally binding climate change mitigation target set by a country. UK government energy policy aims to play a key role in limiting greenhouse gas emissions, while meeting energy demand. Shifting availabilities of resources and development of technologies also change the country's energy mix through changes in costs. The current energy policy is the responsibility of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth is responsible for green finance, climate science and innovation, and low carbon generation. In 2022, the United Kingdom was ranked 2 out of 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index. A law has been passed that UK greenhouse gas emissions will be net zero by 2050. Healthcare The National Health Service (NHS), is the publicly funded healthcare system responsible for providing the majority of healthcare in the country. The NHS began on 5 July 1948, putting into effect the provisions of the National Health Service Act 1946. It was based on the findings of the Beveridge Report, prepared by the economist and social reformer, William Beveridge. The NHS is largely funded by general taxation and National Insurance payments; it provides most of its services free at the point of use, although there are charges for some people for eye tests, dental care, prescriptions and aspects of personal care. The government department responsible for the NHS is the Department of Health, under the Secretary of State for Health. Most of the department's expenses are on the NHS – £98.6 billion was spent in 2008–2009. Regulatory bodies such as the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council are organised on a UK-wide basis, as are non-governmental bodies such as the Royal Colleges. The average life expectancy is 77.5 years for males and 81.7 years for females, the highest of the four countries of the United Kingdom. The south of England has a higher life expectancy than the north, but regional differences seem to be slowly narrowing: between 1991–1993 and 2012–2014, life expectancy in the North East increased by 6.0 years and in the North West by 5.8 years. Demography Population With over 56 million inhabitants, England is by far the most populous country of the United Kingdom, accounting for 84% of the combined total. England taken as a unit and measured against international states would be the 26th largest country by population in the world. The English people are British people. There is an English diaspora in former parts of the British Empire; especially the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Since the late 1990s, many English people have migrated to Spain. Due in particular to the economic prosperity of South East England, it has received many economic migrants from the other parts of the United Kingdom. There has been significant Irish migration. The proportion of ethnically European residents totals at 81.7%, including White British, Germans and Poles, down from 94.1% in 1991. Other people from much further afield in the former British colonies have arrived since the 1950s: in particular, about 7% of people living in England have family origins in the Indian subcontinent, mostly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. About 0.7% are Chinese, 0.6% are Arabs. 4.0% of the population are black, from Africa and the Caribbean, especially former British colonies, and 2.9% identified as multiracial or mixed. In 2007, 22% of primary school children in England were from ethnic minority families, and in 2011 that figure was 26.5%. About half of the population increase between 1991 and 2001 was due to immigration. England contains one indigenous national minority, the Cornish people, recognised by the UK government under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 2014. Language English, today widely spoken around the world, originated in what is now England, where it remains the principal tongue. According to a 2011 census, it is spoken well or very well by 98% of the population English language learning and teaching is an important economic activity. There is no legislation mandating an official language for England, but English is the only language used for official business. Despite the country's relatively small size, there are many distinct regional accents. Cornish died out as a community language in the 18th century but is being revived, and is now protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It is spoken by 0.1% of people in Cornwall, and is taught to some degree in several primary and secondary schools. State schools teach students a second language or third language from the ages of seven, most commonly French, Spanish or German. It was reported in 2007 that around 800,000 school students spoke a foreign language at home, the most common being Punjabi and Urdu. However, following the 2011 census data released by the Office for National Statistics, figures now show that Polish is the main language spoken in England after English. In 2022, British Sign Language became an official language of England when the British Sign Language Act 2022 came into effect. Religion In the 2011 census, 59.4% of the population of England specified their religion as Christian, 24.7% answered that they had no religion, 5% specified that they were Muslim, while 3.7% of the population belongs to other religions and 7.2% did not give an answer. Christianity is the most widely practised religion in England. The established church of England is the Church of England, which left communion with Rome in the 1530s when Henry VIII was unable to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The church regards itself as both Catholic and Protestant. There are High Church and Low Church traditions and some Anglicans regard themselves as Anglo-Catholics, following the Tractarian movement. The monarch of the United Kingdom is the supreme governor of the Church of England, which has around 26 million baptised members (of whom the vast majority are not regular churchgoers). It forms part of the Anglican Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury acting as its symbolic worldwide head. Many cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance, such as Westminster Abbey, York Minster, Durham Cathedral, and Salisbury Cathedral. The second-largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church. Since its reintroduction after the Catholic Emancipation, the Church has organised ecclesiastically on an England and Wales basis where there are 4.5 million members (most of whom are English). There has been one Pope from England to date, Adrian IV, while saints Bede and Anselm are regarded as Doctors of the Church. A form of Protestantism known as Methodism is the third largest Christian practice and grew out of Anglicanism through John Wesley. It gained popularity in the mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and among tin miners in Cornwall. There are other non-conformist minorities, such as Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Unitarians and The Salvation Army. The patron saint of England is Saint George; his symbolic cross is included in the flag of England. There are many other English and associated saints, including Cuthbert, Edmund, Alban, Wilfrid, Aidan, Edward the Confessor, John Fisher, Thomas More, Petroc, Piran, Margaret Clitherow and Thomas Becket. There are non-Christian religions practised. Jews have a history of a small minority on the island since 1070. They were expelled from England in 1290 following the Edict of Expulsion, and were allowed back in 1656. Especially since the 1950s, religions from the former British colonies have grown in numbers, due to immigration. Islam is the most common of these, now accounting for around 5% of the population in England. Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism are next in number, adding up to 2.8% combined, introduced from India and Southeast Asia. A small minority of the population practise ancient Pagan religions. Neopaganism in the United Kingdom is primarily represented by Wicca and Neopagan witchcraft, Druidry, and Heathenry. According to the 2011 census, there are roughly 53,172 people who identify as Pagan in England, including 11,026 Wiccans. 24.7% of people in England declared no religion, compared with 14.6% in 2001. Norwich had the highest such proportion at 42.5%, followed by Brighton and Hove at 42.4%. Education The Department for Education is the government department responsible for issues affecting people in England up to the age of 19, including education. State-funded schools are attended by approximately 93% of English schoolchildren. Education is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Education. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 attend nursery or an Early Years Foundation Stage reception unit within a primary school. Children between the ages of 5 and 11 attend primary school, and secondary school is attended by those aged between 11 and 16. State-funded schools are obliged by law to teach the National Curriculum; basic areas of learning include English literature, English language, mathematics, science, art & design, citizenship, history, geography, religious education, design & technology, computing, ancient & modern languages, music, and physical education.The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD currently ranks the overall knowledge and skills of British 15-year-olds as 13th in the world in literacy, mathematics, and science with the average British student scoring 503.7, well above the OECD average of 493. Although most English secondary schools are comprehensive, there are selective intake grammar schools to which entrance is subject to passing the eleven-plus exam. Around 7.2 per cent of English schoolchildren attend private schools, which are funded by private sources. Standards in state schools are monitored by the Office for Standards in Education, and in private schools by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. After finishing compulsory education, students take GCSE examinations. Students may then opt to continue into further education for two years. Further education colleges (particularly sixth form colleges) often form part of a secondary school site. A-level examinations are sat by a large number of further education students, and often form the basis of an application to university. Further education covers a wide curriculum of study and apprenticeships, including T-levels, BTEC, NVQ and others. Tertiary colleges provide both academic and vocational courses. Higher education Higher education students normally attend university from age 18 onwards, where they study for an academic degree. There are over 90 universities in England, all but one of which are public institutions. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is the government department responsible for higher education in England. Students are generally entitled to student loans to cover tuition fees and living costs. The first degree offered to undergraduates is the bachelor's degree, which usually takes three years to complete. Students are then able to work towards a postgraduate degree, which usually takes one year, or a doctorate, which takes three or more years. England's universities include some of the highest-ranked universities in the world. As of 2024, four England-based universities, the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and University College London, are ranked among the top ten in the 2024 QS World University Rankings. The University of Cambridge, founded in 1209, and the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, are the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world. The London School of Economics has been described as the world's leading social science institution for both teaching and research. The London Business School is considered one of the world's leading business schools and in 2010 its MBA programme was ranked best in the world by the Financial Times. Academic degrees in England are usually split into classes: first class, upper second class, lower second class, third, and unclassified. The King's School, Canterbury and King's School, Rochester are the oldest schools in the English-speaking world. Many of England's most well-known schools, such as Winchester College, Eton, St Paul's School, Harrow School and Rugby School are fee-paying institutions. Culture Architecture Many ancient standing stone monuments were erected during the prehistoric period; among the best known are Stonehenge, Devil's Arrows, Rudston Monolith and Castlerigg. With the introduction of Ancient Roman architecture there was a development of basilicas, baths, amphitheaters, triumphal arches, villas, Roman temples, Roman roads, Roman forts, stockades and aqueducts. It was the Romans who founded the first cities and towns such as London, Bath, York, Chester and St Albans. Perhaps the best-known example is Hadrian's Wall stretching right across northern England. Another well-preserved example is the Roman Baths at Bath, Somerset. Early medieval architecture's secular buildings were simple constructions mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Ecclesiastical architecture ranged from a synthesis of Hiberno–Saxon monasticism, to Early Christian basilica and architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings. After the Norman conquest in 1066 various castles were created; the best known include the Tower of London, Warwick Castle, Durham Castle and Windsor Castle. Throughout the Plantagenet era, an English Gothic architecture flourished, with prime examples including the medieval cathedrals such as Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and York Minster. Expanding on the Norman base there was also castles, palaces, great houses, universities and parish churches. Medieval architecture was completed with the 16th-century Tudor style; the four-centred arch, now known as the Tudor arch, was a defining feature as were wattle and daub houses domestically. In the aftermath of the Renaissance a form of architecture echoing classical antiquity synthesised with Christianity appeared, the English Baroque style of architect Christopher Wren being particularly championed. Georgian architecture followed in a more refined style, evoking a simple Palladian form; the Royal Crescent at Bath is one of the best examples of this. With the emergence of romanticism during Victorian period, a Gothic Revival was launched. In addition to this, around the same time the Industrial Revolution paved the way for buildings such as The Crystal Palace. Since the 1930s various modernist forms have appeared whose reception is often controversial, though traditionalist resistance movements continue with support in influential places. Gardens Landscape gardening, as developed by Capability Brown, set an international trend for the English landscape garden. Gardening, and visiting gardens, are regarded as typically English pursuits. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. At large country houses, the English garden usually included lakes, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. By the end of the 18th century, the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century. The English landscape garden was centred on the English country house and manor houses. English Heritage and the National Trust preserve great gardens and landscape parks throughout the country. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is held every year by the Royal Horticultural Society and is said to be the largest gardening show in the world. Folklore English folklore developed over many centuries. Some of the characters and stories are present across England, but most belong to specific regions. Common folkloric beings include pixies, giants, elves, bogeymen, trolls, goblins and dwarves. While many legends and folk-customs are thought to be ancient, such as the tales featuring Offa of Angel and Wayland the Smith, others date from after the Norman invasion. The legends featuring Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood, and their battles with the Sheriff of Nottingham, are among the best-known of these. During the High Middle Ages tales originating from Brythonic traditions entered English folklore and developed into the Arthurian myth. These were derived from Anglo-Norman, Welsh and French sources, featuring King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table such as Lancelot. These stories are most centrally brought together within Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Some folk figures are based on semi or actual historical people whose story has been passed down centuries. On 5 November people celebrate Bonfire Night to commemorate the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot centred on Guy Fawkes. There are various national and regional folk activities, participated in to this day, such as Morris dancing, Maypole dancing, Rapper sword in the North East, Long Sword dance in Yorkshire, Mummers Plays, bottle-kicking in Leicestershire, and cheese-rolling at Cooper's Hill. There is no official national costume, but a few are well established such as the Pearly Kings and Queens associated with cockneys, the Royal Guard, the Morris costume and Beefeaters. Cuisine Since the early modern period the food of England has historically been characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, English cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation, though a decline began during the Industrial Revolution with increasing urbanisation. The cuisine of England has, however, recently undergone a revival, which has been recognised by food critics with some good ratings in Restaurant's best restaurant in the world charts. Traditional examples of English food include the Sunday roast, featuring a roasted joint (usually beef, lamb, chicken or pork) served with assorted vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Other prominent meals include fish and chips and the full English breakfast (generally consisting of bacon, sausages, grilled tomatoes, fried bread, black pudding, baked beans, mushrooms and eggs). Various meat pies are consumed, such as steak and kidney pie, steak and ale pie, cottage pie, pork pie (usually eaten cold) and the Cornish pasty. Sausages are commonly eaten, either as bangers and mash or toad in the hole. Lancashire hotpot is a well-known stew originating in the northwest. Some of the more popular cheeses are Cheddar, Red Leicester, Wensleydale, Double Gloucester and Blue Stilton. Many Anglo-Indian hybrid dishes, curries, have been created, such as chicken tikka masala and balti. Traditional English dessert dishes include apple pie or other fruit pies; spotted dick – all generally served with custard; and, more recently, sticky toffee pudding. Sweet pastries include scones served with jam or cream, dried fruit loaves, Eccles cakes and mince pies as well as sweet or spiced biscuits. Common non-alcoholic drinks include tea and coffee; frequently consumed alcoholic drinks include wine, ciders and English beers, such as bitter, mild, stout and brown ale. Visual arts The earliest known examples are the prehistoric rock and cave art pieces, most prominent in North Yorkshire, Northumberland and Cumbria, but also feature further south, for example at Creswell Crags. With the arrival of Roman culture in the 1st century, various forms of art such as statues, busts, glasswork and mosaics were the norm. There are numerous surviving artefacts, such as those at Lullingstone and Aldborough. During the Early Middle Ages the style favoured sculpted crosses and ivories, manuscript painting, gold and enamel jewellery, demonstrating a love of intricate, interwoven designs such as in the Staffordshire Hoard discovered in 2009. Some of these blended Gaelic and Anglian styles, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and Vespasian Psalter. Later Gothic art was popular at Winchester and Canterbury, examples survive such as Benedictional of St. Æthelwold and Luttrell Psalter. The Tudor era saw prominent artists as part of their court; portrait painting, which would remain an enduring part of English art, was boosted by German Hans Holbein, and natives such as Nicholas Hilliard built on this. Under the Stuarts, Continental artists were influential especially the Flemish, examples from the period include Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller and William Dobson. The 18th century saw the founding of the Royal Academy; a classicism based on the High Renaissance prevailed, with Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds becoming two of England's most treasured artists. In the 19th century, John Constable and J. M. W. Turner were major landscape artists. The Norwich School continued the landscape tradition, while the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, led by artists such as Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais, revived the Early Renaissance style with their vivid and detailed style. Prominent among 20th-century artists was Henry Moore, regarded as the voice of British sculpture, and of British modernism in general. The Royal Society of Arts is an organisation committed to the arts. Literature, poetry, and philosophy Early authors such as Bede and Alcuin wrote in Latin. The period of Old English literature provided the epic poem Beowulf and the secular prose of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with Christian writings such as Judith, Cædmon's Hymn and hagiographies. Following the Norman conquest Latin continued among the educated classes, as well as an Anglo-Norman literature. Middle English literature emerged with Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, along with Gower, the Pearl Poet and Langland. William of Ockham and Roger Bacon, who were Franciscans, were major philosophers of the Middle Ages. Julian of Norwich, who wrote Revelations of Divine Love, was a prominent Christian mystic. With the English Renaissance literature in the Early Modern English style appeared. William Shakespeare, whose works include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, remains one of the most championed authors in English literature. Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, and Ben Jonson are other established authors of the Elizabethan age. Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes wrote on empiricism and materialism, including scientific method and social contract. Filmer wrote on the Divine Right of Kings. Marvell was the best-known poet of the Commonwealth, while John Milton authored Paradise Lost during the Restoration. Some of the most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment were John Locke, Thomas Paine, Samuel Johnson and Jeremy Bentham. More radical elements were later countered by Edmund Burke who is regarded as the founder of conservatism. The poet Alexander Pope with his satirical verse became well regarded. The English played a significant role in romanticism: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake and William Wordsworth were major figures. In response to the Industrial Revolution, agrarian writers sought a way between liberty and tradition; William Cobbett, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were main exponents, while the founder of guild socialism, Arthur Penty, and cooperative movement advocate G. D. H. Cole are somewhat related. Empiricism continued through John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, while Bernard Williams was involved in analytics. Authors from around the Victorian era include Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells and Lewis Carroll. Since then England has continued to produce novelists such as George Orwell, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, C. S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, Aldous Huxley, Agatha Christie, Terry Pratchett, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling. Performing arts The traditional folk music of England is centuries old and has contributed to several genres prominently; mostly sea shanties, jigs, hornpipes and dance music. It has its own distinct variations and regional peculiarities. Ballads featuring Robin Hood, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the 16th century, are an important artefact, as are John Playford's The Dancing Master and Robert Harley's Roxburghe Ballads collections. Some of the best-known songs are Greensleeves, Pastime with Good Company, Maggie May and Spanish Ladies among others. Many nursery rhymes are of English origin such as Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Roses Are Red, Jack and Jill, London Bridge Is Falling Down, The Grand Old Duke of York, Hey Diddle Diddle and Humpty Dumpty. Traditional English Christmas carols include "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "The First Noel", "I Saw Three Ships" and "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen". Early English composers in classical music include Renaissance artists Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, followed by Henry Purcell from the Baroque period and Thomas Arne who was well known for his patriotic song Rule, Britannia!. German-born George Frideric Handel spent most of his composing life in London and became a national icon in Britain, creating some of the most well-known works of classical music, especially his English oratorios, The Messiah, Solomon, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Classical music attracted much attention in the 18th century with the formation of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, which was the longest running classical music festival of its kind until the final concerts in 1912. The English Musical Renaissance was a hypothetical development in the late 19th and early 20th century, when English composers, often those lecturing or trained at the Royal College of Music, were said to have freed themselves from foreign musical influences. There was a revival in the profile of composers from England in the 20th century led by Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and others. Present-day composers from England include Michael Nyman, best known for The Piano, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have achieved enormous success in the West End and worldwide. In popular music, many English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Def Leppard are among the highest-selling recording artists in the world. Many musical genres have origins in (or strong associations with) England, such as British invasion, progressive rock, hard rock, Mod, glam rock, heavy metal, Britpop, indie rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, garage, trip hop, drum and bass and dubstep. Large outdoor music festivals in the summer and autumn are popular, such as Glastonbury, V Festival, and the Reading and Leeds Festivals. England was at the forefront of the illegal, free rave movement from the late 1980s, which inspired the pan-European culture of teknivals. The Boishakhi Mela is a Bengali New Year festival celebrated by the British Bangladeshi community. It is the largest open-air Asian festival in Europe. After the Notting Hill Carnival, it is the second-largest street festival in the UK, attracting over 80,000 visitors. The most prominent opera house in England is the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The Proms is a major annual cultural event in the English calendar. The Royal Ballet is one of the world's foremost classical ballet companies. The Royal Academy of Music is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822, receiving its royal charter in 1830. England is home to numerous major orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Other forms of entertainment that originated in England include the circus and the pantomime. Cinema England has had a considerable influence on the history of the cinema, producing some of the greatest actors, directors and motion pictures of all time, including Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David Lean, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and Daniel Day-Lewis. Hitchcock and Lean are among the most critically acclaimed filmmakers. Hitchcock's The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926) helped shape the thriller genre in film, while his 1929 Blackmail is often regarded as the first British sound feature film. Major film studios in England include Pinewood, Elstree and Shepperton. Some of the most commercially successful films of all time have been produced in England, including two of the highest-grossing film franchises (Harry Potter and James Bond). Ealing Studios in London has a claim to being the oldest continuously working film studio in the world. Famous for recording many motion picture film scores, the London Symphony Orchestra first performed film music in 1935. The Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee saw the production of the first gory horror films showing blood and guts in colour. The BFI Top 100 British films includes Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), a film regularly voted the funniest of all time by the UK public. English producers are also active in international co-productions and English actors, directors and crew feature regularly in American films. The UK film council ranked David Yates, Christopher Nolan, Mike Newell, Ridley Scott and Paul Greengrass the five most commercially successful English directors since 2001. Other contemporary English directors include Sam Mendes, Guy Ritchie and Richard Curtis. Current actors include Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lena Headey, Felicity Jones, Emilia Clarke, Lashana Lynch, and Emma Watson. Acclaimed for his motion capture work, Andy Serkis opened The Imaginarium Studios in London in 2011. The visual effects company Framestore in London has produced some of the most critically acclaimed special effects in modern film. Many successful Hollywood films have been based on English people, stories or events. The 'English Cycle' of Disney animated films include Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh. Sites and institutions English Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing the historic sites, artefacts and environments of England. It is currently sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A non-governmental charity, the National Trust holds a complementary role, focussed on landscapes and country houses. 17 of the 25 United Kingdom UNESCO World Heritage Sites fall within England. Some of the best-known of these are: Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites, the Tower of London, the Jurassic Coast, Saltaire, Ironbridge Gorge, Blenheim Palace and the Lake District. London's British Museum holds more than seven million objects, one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, illustrating and documenting global human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Library in London is the national library and is one of the world's largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in almost all known languages and formats, including around 25 million books. The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The Tate galleries house the national collections of British and international modern art; they also host the Turner Prize. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has overall responsibility for cultural property and heritage. A blue plaque, the oldest historical marker scheme in the world, is a permanent sign installed in a public place in England to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event. In 2011 there were around 1,600 museums in England. Entry to most museums and galleries is free. London is one of the world's most visited cities, regularly taking the top five most visited cities in Europe. It is considered a global centre of finance, art and culture. Media The BBC, founded in 1922, is the UK's publicly funded radio, television and Internet broadcasting corporation, and is the oldest and largest broadcaster in the world. It operates numerous television and radio stations in the UK and abroad and its domestic services are funded by the television licence. The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest of any kind. It broadcasts radio news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages. London dominates the media sector in England: national newspapers and television and radio are largely based there, although Manchester is also a significant national media centre. The UK publishing sector, including books, directories and databases, journals, magazines and business media, newspapers and news agencies, has a combined turnover of around £20 billion and employs around 167,000 people. National newspapers produced in England include The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times. Magazines and journals published in England that have achieved worldwide circulation include Nature, New Scientist, The Spectator, Prospect, NME and The Economist. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has overall responsibility over media and broadcasting in England. Sport England has a strong sporting heritage, and during the 19th century codified many sports that are now played around the world. Sports originating in England include association football, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, tennis, boxing, badminton, squash, rounders, hockey, snooker, billiards, darts, table tennis, bowls, netball, thoroughbred horseracing, greyhound racing and fox hunting. It has helped the development of golf, sailing and Formula One. England has been crowned world champion in several major sports including: Cricket, Rugby and Association Football. Football is the most popular of these sports. The England national football team, whose home venue is Wembley Stadium, played Scotland in the first-ever international football match in 1872. Referred to as the "home of football" by FIFA, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. With a British television audience peak of 32.30 million viewers, the final is the most watched television event ever in the UK. England is recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football: Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest club. The England women's national football team won the UEFA Euro 2022, hosted by England. Cricket is generally thought to have been developed in the early medieval period among the farming and metalworking communities of the Weald. The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales team. One of the game's top rivalries is The Ashes series between England and Australia, contested since 1882. Lord's Cricket Ground situated in London is sometimes referred to as the "Mecca of Cricket". After winning the 2019 Cricket World Cup, England became the first country to win the World Cups in football, rugby union, and cricket. William Penny Brookes was prominent in organising the format for the modern Olympic Games. London has hosted the Summer Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948, and 2012. England competes in the Commonwealth Games, held every four years. Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England. Rugby union originated in Rugby School, Warwickshire in the early 19th century. The top level of club participation is the English Premiership. Rugby league was born in Huddersfield in 1895. Since 2008, the England national rugby league team has been a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, which won three World Cups. Club sides play in Super League, the present-day embodiment of the Rugby Football League Championship. Rugby League is most popular among towns in the northern English counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria. Golf has been prominent in England, due in part to its cultural and geographical ties to Scotland. There are professional tours for men and women, in two main tours: the PGA and the European Tour. The world's oldest golf tournament, and golf's first major is The Open Championship, played both in England and Scotland. The biennial golf competition, the Ryder Cup, is named after English businessman Samuel Ryder. Tennis was created in Birmingham in the late 19th century, and the Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious. Wimbledon has a major place in the English cultural calendar. In boxing, under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, England has produced many world champions across the weight divisions internationally recognised by the governing bodies. Originating in 17th and 18th-century England, the thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. The National Hunt horse race the Grand National, is held annually at Aintree Racecourse in early April. It is the most watched horse race in the UK, and three-time winner Red Rum is the most successful racehorse in the event's history. The 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone was the first race in the newly created Formula One World Championship. England has seen the manufacture some of the most technically advanced racing cars, and many of today's racing companies choose England as their base of operations. England also has a rich heritage in Grand Prix motorcycle racing, the premier championship of motorcycle road racing, and has produced several world champions. Darts is a widely popular sport in England; a professional competitive sport, it is a traditional pub game. Another popular sport commonly associated with pub games is snooker, and England has produced several world champions. The English are keen sailors and enjoy competitive sailing; founding and winning some of the world's most famous international competitive tournaments across the various race formats, including the match race, a regatta, and the America's Cup. National symbols The St George's Cross has been the national flag of England since the 13th century. Originally, the flag was used by the maritime Republic of Genoa. The English monarch paid a tribute to the Doge of Genoa from 1190 onwards so that English ships could fly the flag as a means of protection when entering the Mediterranean. A red cross was a symbol for many Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries, and became associated with Saint George. Since 1606 the St George's Cross has formed part of the design of the Union Flag, a Pan-British flag designed by King James I. During the English Civil War and Interregnum, the New Model Army's standards and the Commonwealth's Great Seal both incorporated the flag of Saint George. There are numerous other symbols and symbolic artefacts, both official and unofficial, including the Tudor rose, the nation's floral emblem, and the Three Lions featured on the Royal Arms of England. The Tudor rose was adopted as a national emblem of England around the time of the Wars of the Roses as a symbol of peace. It is a syncretic symbol in that it merged the white rose of the Yorkists and the red rose of the Lancastrians. It is also known as the Rose of England. The oak tree is a symbol of England: the Royal Oak symbol and Oak Apple Day commemorate the escape of King Charles II after his father's execution, when he hid in an oak to avoid detection by the parliamentarians before safely reaching exile. The Royal Arms of England, a national coat of arms featuring three lions, originated with Richard the Lionheart in 1198. It is blazoned as gules, three lions passant guardant or and it provides one of the most prominent symbols of England. England does not have an official national anthem, as the United Kingdom as a whole has God Save the King. However, Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory (used for England during the 2002 Commonwealth Games), and I Vow to Thee, My Country are often considered unofficial English national anthems. England's National Day is 23 April which is Saint George's Day: Saint George is the patron saint of England. See also Outline of England Outline of the United Kingdom Notes References Bibliography External links English Heritage – national body protecting English heritage Natural England – wildlife and the natural world of England VisitEngland – English tourist board BBC News – England – news items from BBC News relating to England GOV.UK – official website of the British Government Geographic data related to England at OpenStreetMap

Seven_Wonders_of_the_Ancient_World

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Wonders_of_the_Ancient_World

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2nd–1st century BC. While the entries have varied over the centuries, the seven traditional wonders are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, still remains standing, while the others have been destroyed over the centuries. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all. Background Alexander the Great's conquest of much of the western world in the 4th century BC gave Hellenistic travellers access to the civilizations of the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians. Impressed and captivated by the landmarks and marvels of the various lands, these travellers began to list what they saw to remember them. Instead of "wonders", the ancient Greeks spoke of "theamata" (θεάματα), which means "sights", in other words "things to be seen" (Τὰ ἑπτὰ θεάματα τῆς οἰκουμένης [γῆς] Tà heptà theámata tēs oikoumenēs [gēs]). Later, the word for "wonder" ("thaumata" θαύματα, "wonders") was used. Hence, the list was meant to be the Ancient World's counterpart of a travel guidebook. The first reference to a list of seven such monuments was given by Diodorus Siculus. The epigrammist Antipater of Sidon, who lived around or before 100 BC, gave a list of seven "wonders", including six of the present list (substituting the walls of Babylon for the Lighthouse of Alexandria): I have gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alpheus, I have seen the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the sacred house of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus. Another ancient writer, who, perhaps dubiously, identified himself as Philo of Byzantium, wrote a short account entitled The Seven Sights of the World. The surviving manuscript is incomplete, missing its last pages. Still, from the preamble text, we can conclude that the list of seven sights exactly matches Antipater's (the preamble mentions the location of Halicarnassus, but the pages describing the seventh wonder, presumably the Mausoleum, are missing). Earlier and later lists by the historian Herodotus (c. 484 BC–c. 425 BC) and the poet Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 305–240 BC), housed at the Museum of Alexandria, survive only as references. The Colossus of Rhodes was the last of the seven to be completed after 280 BC and the first to be destroyed by an earthquake in 226/225 BC. As such, it was already in ruins by the time the list was compiled, and all seven wonders existed simultaneously for less than 60 years. Scope The list covered only the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, which then comprised the known world for the Greeks. The primary accounts from Hellenistic writers also heavily influenced the places included in the wonders list. Five of the seven entries are a celebration of Greek accomplishments in construction, with the exceptions being the Pyramids of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Wonders Influence Arts and architecture The seven wonders on Antipater's list won praises for their notable features, ranging from superlatives of the highest or largest of their types, to the artistry with which they were executed. Their architectural and artistic features were imitated throughout the Hellenistic world and beyond. The Greek influence in Roman culture, and the revival of Greco-Roman artistic styles during the Renaissance caught the imagination of European artists and travellers. Paintings and sculptures alluding to Antipater's list were made, while significant numbers of adventurers travelled to the actual sites to personally witness the wonders. Legends circulated to further complement the superlatives of the wonders. Modern lists Of Antipater's wonders, the only one that has survived to the present day is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Its brilliant white stone facing had survived intact until around 1300 AD, when local communities removed most of the stonework for building materials. The existence of the Hanging Gardens has not been proven, though theories abound. Records and archaeology confirm the existence of the other five wonders. The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were destroyed by fire, while the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Colossus, and tomb of Mausolus were destroyed by earthquakes. Among the surviving artefacts are sculptures from the tomb of Mausolus and the Temple of Artemis, currently kept in the British Museum in London. The listing of seven of the most marvellous architectural and artistic human achievements continued beyond the Ancient Greek times to the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and to the modern age. The Roman poet Martial and the Christian bishop Gregory of Tours had their versions. Reflecting the rise of Christianity and the factor of time, nature and the hand of man overcoming Antipater's seven wonders, Roman and Christian sites began to figure on the list, including the Colosseum, Noah's Ark, and Solomon's Temple. In the 6th century, a list of seven wonders was compiled by St. Gregory of Tours: the list included the Temple of Solomon, the Pharos of Alexandria, and Noah's Ark. Modern historians, working on the premise that the original Seven Ancient Wonders List was limited in its geographic scope, also had their versions to encompass sites beyond the Hellenistic realm—from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to the Seven Wonders of the World. The "seven wonders" label has spawned innumerable versions among international organizations, publications and individuals based on different themes—works of nature, engineering masterpieces, constructions of the Middle Ages, etc. Its purpose has also changed from just a simple travel guidebook or a compendium of curious places to a list of sites to defend or preserve. See also New 7 Wonders of the World, a campaign for people to vote and choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. Eighth Wonder of the World, about attempted additions to the famous ancient list. Wonders of the World, about similar lists made throughout the ages. Seven Wonders of the World (1956 film) 7 Wonders of the Ancient World (2007 video game) 7 Wonders (2010 board game) Seven Wonders (2013 book series) References Further reading Clayton, Peter and Price, Martin, 1988, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Routledge. ISBN 9780710211590 Condello, Federico; Floridi, Lucia (2023). Pseudo-Filone di Bisanzio, "Le sette meraviglie del mondo": introduzione, testo critico, traduzione, note esegetiche e testuali. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 9783111166469. Higgins, Michael Denis (2023). The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, Engineering and Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197648155. External links "Seven Ancient Wonders of the World" on The History Channel website. Also includes links to medieval, modern and natural wonders. Parkin, Tim, Researching Ancient Wonders: A Research Guide, from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. – a collection of books and Internet resources with information on seven ancient wonders. "Eternal wonder of humanity's first great achievements", by Jonathan Glancey in The Guardian, 10 March 2007

Statue_of_Zeus_at_Olympia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Zeus_at_Olympia

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was a giant seated figure, about 12.4 m (41 ft) tall, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias around 435 BC at the sanctuary of Olympia, Greece, and erected in the Temple of Zeus there. Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. The statue was a chryselephantine sculpture of ivory plates and gold panels on a wooden framework. Zeus sat on a painted cedarwood throne ornamented with ebony, ivory, gold, and precious stones. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The statue was lost and destroyed before the end of the 6th century AD, with conflicting accounts of the date and circumstances. Details of its form are known only from ancient Greek descriptions and representations on coins and art. History The statue of Zeus was commissioned by the Eleans, custodians of the Olympic Games, in the latter half of the fifth century BC for their newly constructed Temple of Zeus. Seeking to outdo their Athenian rivals, the Eleans employed sculptor Phidias, who had previously made the massive statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. The statue occupied half the width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. The geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC that the statue gave "the impression that if Zeus arose and stood erect he would unroof the temple." The Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made with ivory and gold panels on a wooden substructure. No copy in marble or bronze has survived, though there are recognizable but only approximate versions on coins of nearby Elis and on Roman coins and engraved gems. The 2nd-century AD geographer and traveler Pausanias left a detailed description: the statue was crowned with a sculpted wreath of olive sprays and wore a gilded robe made from glass and carved with animals and lilies. Its right hand held a small chryselephantine statue of crowned Nike, goddess of victory; its left a scepter inlaid with many metals, supporting an eagle. The throne featured painted figures and wrought images and was decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory. Zeus' golden sandals rested upon a footstool decorated with an Amazonomachy in relief. The passage underneath the throne was restricted by painted screens. Pausanias also recounts that the statue was kept constantly coated with olive oil to counter the harmful effect on the ivory caused by the "marshiness" of the Altis grove. The floor in front of the image was paved with black tiles and surrounded by a raised rim of marble to contain the oil. This reservoir acted as a reflecting pool which doubled the apparent height of the statue. According to the Roman historian Livy, the Roman general Aemilius Paullus (the victor over Macedon) saw the statue and "was moved to his soul, as if he had seen the god in person", while the 1st-century AD Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles. According to Strabo, when Phidias was asked about the model he would use for his Zeus, he answered that he would portray Zeus according to these words of Homer: The son of Cronos spoke, and bowed his dark brow in assent, and the ambrosial locks waved from the king's immortal head; and he made great Olympus quake (English translation by A.T. Murray). The sculptor also was reputed to have immortalised Pantarkes, the winner of the boys' wrestling event at the eighty-sixth Olympiad who was said to have been his "beloved" (eromenos), by carving Pantarkes kalos ("Pantarkes is beautiful") into Zeus's little finger, and by placing a relief of the boy crowning himself at the feet of the statue. According to Pausanias, "when the image was quite finished Pheidias prayed the god to show by a sign whether the work was to his liking. Immediately, runs the legend, a thunderbolt fell on that part of the floor where down to the present day the bronze jar stood to cover the place." Loss and destruction According to Roman historian Suetonius, the Roman Emperor Caligula gave orders that "such statues of the gods as were especially famous for their sanctity or their artistic merit, including that of Jupiter at Olympia, should be brought from Greece, in order to remove their heads and put his own in their place." The emperor was assassinated before this could happen, in 41 AD; his death was supposedly foretold by the statue, which "suddenly uttered such a peal of laughter that the scaffolding collapsed and the workmen took to their heels." In 391 AD, the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius I banned participation in pagan cults and closed the temples. The sanctuary at Olympia fell into disuse. The circumstances of the statue's eventual destruction are unknown. The 11th-century Byzantine historian Georgios Kedrenos records a tradition that it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was destroyed in the great fire of the Palace of Lausus, in 475 AD. Alternatively, the statue perished along with the temple, which was severely damaged by fire in 425 AD. But earlier loss or damage is implied by Lucian of Samosata in the later 2nd century, who referenced it in Timon: "they have laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the loot." Phidias' workshop The approximate date of the statue (the third quarter of the 5th century BC) was confirmed in the rediscovery (1954–1958) of Phidias' workshop, approximately where Pausanias said the statue of Zeus was constructed. Archaeological finds included tools for working gold and ivory, ivory chippings, precious stones and terracotta moulds. Most of the latter were used to create glass plaques, and to form the statue's robe from sheets of glass, naturalistically draped and folded, then gilded. A cup inscribed "ΦΕΙΔΙΟΥ ΕΙΜΙ" or "I belong to Phidias" was found at the site. However, the inscription is considered by some to be a forgery. See also List of tallest statues Olympic Oration or On Man's First Conception of God George Washington, 1840 statue Great Buddha of Kyoto Lost giant statue of Japan, like Zeus at Olympia References Bibliography Further reading Barringer, Judith M. 2010. "Zeus at Olympia." In The gods of ancient Greece: Identities and transformations. Edited by Jan Bremmer and Andrew Erskine, 155–77. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. Boardman, John. 1985. Greek sculpture: The Classical period. London: Thames & Hudson. Higgins, Michael Denis (2023). The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, Engineering and Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197648155. Lapatin, Kenneth D. S. 2001. Chryselephantine statuary in the ancient Mediterranean world. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. McWilliam, Janette (2011). "The statue of Zeus at Olympia in Western imagination via the Internet". In McWilliam, Janette; Puttock, Sonia; Stevenson, Tom (eds.). The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: New Approaches. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 209–222. ISBN 978-1-4438-3032-4. Palagia, Olga, and J. J. Pollitt, eds. 1996. Personal styles in Greek sculpture. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. External links World History Encyclopedia – Statue of Zeus at Olympia Colin Delaney, "A Wonder to Behold: The Statue of Olympian Zeus" Archaeopaedia: Statue of Zeus With bibliography (Ellen Papakyriakou) Olympia: Art: the chryselephantine statue of Zeus Michael Lahanas, "The colossal Zeus statue of Pheidias" Archived 2013-04-03 at the Wayback Machine David Fenzl "Recreating Olympic Statuary" History.com: the Seven Wonders

Colossus_of_Rhodes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_of_Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes (Ancient Greek: ὁ Κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος, romanized: ho Kolossòs Rhódios; Modern Greek: Κολοσσός της Ρόδου, romanized: Kolossós tis Ródou) was a statue of the Greek sun god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BC. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was constructed to celebrate the successful defence of Rhodes city against an attack by Demetrius I of Macedon, who had besieged it for a year with a large army and navy. According to most contemporary descriptions, the Colossus stood approximately 70 cubits, or 33 metres (108 feet) high – approximately two-thirds of the height of the modern Statue of Liberty from feet to crown – making it the tallest statue in the ancient world. It collapsed during the earthquake of 226 BC, although parts of it were preserved. In accordance with the Oracle of Delphi, the Rhodians did not rebuild it. John Malalas wrote that Hadrian in his reign re-erected the Colossus, but he was mistaken. According to the Suda, the Rhodians were called Colossaeans (Κολοσσαεῖς), because they erected the statue on the island. In 653, an Arab force under Muslim general Mu'awiya I conquered Rhodes, and according to the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, the statue was completely destroyed and the remains sold; this account may be unreliable.(pp 179–186) Since 2008, a series of as-yet-unrealized proposals to build a new Colossus at Rhodes Harbour have been announced, although the actual location of the original monument remains in dispute. Siege of Rhodes In the late fourth century BC, Rhodes, allied with Ptolemy I of Egypt, prevented a mass invasion staged by their common enemy, Antigonus I Monophthalmus. In 304 BC a relief force of ships sent by Ptolemy arrived, and Demetrius (son of Antigonus) and his army abandoned the siege, leaving behind most of their siege equipment. To celebrate their victory, the Rhodians sold the equipment left behind for 300 talents and decided to use the money to build a colossal statue of their patron god, Helios. Construction was left to the direction of Chares, a native of Lindos in Rhodes, who had been involved with large-scale statues before. His teacher, the sculptor Lysippos, had constructed a 22-metre-high (72-foot) bronze statue of Zeus at Tarentum. Construction Construction began in 292 BC. Ancient accounts, which differ to some degree, describe the structure as being built with iron tie bars to which brass plates were fixed to form the skin. The interior of the structure, which stood on a 15-metre-high (49-foot) white marble pedestal near the Rhodes harbour entrance, was then filled with stone blocks as construction progressed. Other sources place the Colossus on a breakwater in the harbour. According to most contemporary descriptions, the statue itself was about 70 cubits, or 32 metres (105 feet) tall. Much of the iron and bronze was reforged from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the abandoned second siege tower may have been used for scaffolding around the lower levels during construction. Philo of Byzantium wrote in De septem mundi miraculis that Chares created the sculpture in situ by casting it in horizontal courses and then placing "...a huge mound of earth around each section as soon as it was completed, thus burying the finished work under the accumulated earth, and carrying out the casting of the next part on the level." Modern engineers have put forward a hypothesis for the statue's construction, based on the technology of the time), and the accounts of Philo and Pliny, who saw and described the ruins. The base pedestal was said to be at least 18 metres (59 feet) in diameter, and either circular or octagonal. The feet were carved in stone and covered with thin bronze plates riveted together. Eight forged iron bars set in a radiating horizontal position formed the ankles and turned up to follow the lines of the legs while becoming progressively smaller. Individually cast curved bronze plates 1.5 metres (60 in) square with turned-in edges were joined by rivets through holes formed during casting to form a series of rings. The lower plates were 25 millimetres (1 in) in thickness to the knee and 20 millimetres (3⁄4 in) thick from knee to abdomen, while the upper plates were 6.5 to 12.5 millimetres (1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in) thick except where additional strength was required at joints such as the shoulder, neck, etc. Archaeologist Ursula Vedder has proposed that the sculpture was cast in large sections following traditional Greek methods and that Philo's account is "not compatible with the situation proved by archaeology in ancient Greece." The standing Colossus (280–226 BC) After twelve years, in 280 BC, the statue was completed. Preserved in Greek anthologies of poetry is what is believed to be the genuine dedication text for the Colossus. To you, O Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land. Collapse (226 BC) The statue stood for 54 years until a 226 BC earthquake caused significant damage to large portions of Rhodes, including the harbour and commercial buildings, which were destroyed. The statue snapped at the knees and fell over onto land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but the Oracle of Delphi made the Rhodians fear that they had offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it. Fallen state (226 BC to 653 AD) The remains lay on the ground for over 800 years and, even broken, they were so impressive that many travelled to see them. The remains were described briefly by Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD), in his work Geography (Book XIV, Chapter 2.5). Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo is best known for his work Geographica ("Geography"), which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Strabo states that: The city of the Rhodians lies on the eastern promontory of Rhodes; and it is so far superior to all others in harbours and roads and walls and improvements in general that I am unable to speak of any other city as equal to it, or even as almost equal to it, much less superior to it. It is remarkable also for its good order, and for its careful attention to the administration of affairs of state in general; and in particular to that of naval affairs, whereby it held the mastery of the sea for a long time and overthrew the business of piracy, and became a friend to the Romans and to all kings who favoured both the Romans and the Greeks. Consequently, it not only has remained autonomous but also has been adorned with many votive offerings, which for the most part are to be found in the Dionysium and the gymnasium, but partly in other places. The best of these are, first, the Colossus of Helius, of which the author of the iambic verse says, "seven times ten cubits in height, the work of Chares the Lindian"; but it now lies on the ground, having been thrown down by an earthquake and broken at the knees. In accordance with a certain oracle, the people did not raise it again. This, then, is the most excellent of the votive offerings (at any rate, it is by common agreement one of the Seven Wonders). Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24 – 79) was a Roman author, a naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of emperor Vespasian. Pliny wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. The Naturalis Historia is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge. Pliny remarked: But that which is by far the most worthy of our admiration, is the colossal statue of the Sun, which stood formerly at Rhodes, and was the work of Chares the Lindian, a pupil of the above-named Lysippus; no less than seventy cubits in height. This statue fifty-six years after it was erected, was thrown down by an earthquake; but even as it lies, it excites our wonder and admiration. Few men can clasp the thumb in their arms, and its fingers are larger than most statues. Where the limbs are broken asunder, vast caverns are seen yawning in the interior. Within it, too, are to be seen large masses of rock, by the weight of which the artist steadied it while erecting it. Destruction of the remains The ultimate fate of the remains of the statue is uncertain. Rhodes has two serious earthquakes per century, owing to its location on the seismically unstable Hellenic arc. Pausanias mentions in the Descriptio Graeciae, writing ca. 174, how the city was so devastated by an earthquake that the sibyl oracle foretelling its destruction was considered fulfilled. This means the statue could not have survived for long if it had ever been repaired. By the 4th century Rhodes was Christianized, so any further maintenance or rebuilding, if there ever was any before, on an ancient pagan statue is unlikely. The metal would have likely been used for coins and maybe also tools by the time of the Arab wars, especially during earlier conflicts such as the Sasanian wars.(pp 179–186) The onset of Islamic naval incursions against the Byzantine Empire gave rise to a dramatic account of what became of the Colossus. In 653, an Arab force under Muslim general Mu'awiya I raided Rhodes, and according to the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, the remains of the statue constituted part of the booty, being melted down and sold to a Jewish merchant of Edessa who loaded the bronze onto 900 camels. The same story is recorded by Bar Hebraeus, writing in Syriac in the 13th century in Edessa (after the Arab pillage of Rhodes): "And a great number of men hauled on strong ropes which were tied around the brass Colossus which was in the city and pulled it down. And they weighed from it three thousand loads of Corinthian brass, and they sold it to a certain Jew from Emesa" (the Syrian city of Homs). Ultimately, Theophanes is the sole source of this account, and all other sources can be traced to him.(pp 169–174) As Theophanes' source was Syriac, it may have had vague information about a raid and attributed the statue's demise to it, not knowing much more. Or the Arab destruction and the purported sale to a Jew may have originated as a powerful metaphor for Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the destruction of a great statue.(pp 165–187) Given the likely previous neglect of the remains and various opportunities for authorities to have repurposed the metal, as well as the fact that, Islamic incursions notwithstanding, the island remained an important Byzantine strategic point well into the ninth century, an Arabic raid is unlikely to have found much, if any, remaining metal to carry away. For these reasons, as well as the negative perception of the Arab conquests, L.I. Conrad considers Theophanes' story of the dismantling of the statue as likely propaganda, like the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.(pp 179–186) Posture The harbour-straddling Colossus was a figment of medieval imaginations based on the dedication text's mention of "over land and sea" twice and the writings of an Italian visitor who in 1395 noted that local tradition held that the right foot had stood where the church of St John of the Colossus was then located. Many later illustrations show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbour mouth with ships passing under it. References to this conception are also found in literary works. William Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (I, ii, 136–38) says of Caesar: Shakespeare alludes to the Colossus also in Troilus and Cressida (V.5) and in Henry IV, Part 1 (V.1). "The New Colossus" (1883), a sonnet by Emma Lazarus written on a cast bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903, contrasts the latter with: While these fanciful images feed the misconception, the mechanics of the situation reveal that the Colossus could not have straddled the harbour as described in Lemprière's Classical Dictionary. If the completed statue had straddled the harbour, then the entire mouth of the harbour would have been effectively closed during the entirety of the construction, and the ancient Rhodians would not have had the means to dredge and re-open the harbour after construction was finished. Additionally, the fallen statue would have blocked the harbour, and since the ancient Rhodians did not have the ability to remove the fallen statue from the harbour, it would not have remained visible on land for the next 800 years, as discussed above. Even neglecting these objections, the statue was made of bronze, and engineering analyses indicate that it could not have been built with its legs apart without collapsing under its own weight. Many researchers have considered alternative positions for the statue which would have made it more feasible for actual construction by the ancients. There is also no evidence that the statue held a torch aloft; the records simply say that after completion, the Rhodians kindled the "torch of freedom". A relief in a nearby temple shows Helios standing with one hand shielding his eyes (as if saluting) and it is quite possible that the colossus was constructed in the same pose. While scholars do not know what the statue looked like, they do have a good idea of what the head and face looked like, as it was of a standard rendering at the time. The head would have had curly hair with evenly spaced spikes of bronze or silver flame radiating, similar to the images found on contemporary Rhodian coins. Possible locations While scholars generally agree that anecdotal depictions of the Colossus straddling the harbour's entry point have no historic or scientific basis, the monument's actual location remains a matter of debate. As mentioned above the statue is thought locally to have stood where two pillars now stand at the Mandraki port entrance. The floor of the Fortress of St Nicholas, near the harbour entrance, contains a circle of sandstone blocks of unknown origin or purpose. Curved blocks of marble that were incorporated into the Fortress structure, but are considered too intricately cut to have been quarried for that purpose, have been posited as the remnants of a marble base for the Colossus, which would have stood on the sandstone block foundation. Archaeologist Ursula Vedder postulates that the Colossus was not located in the harbour area at all, but rather was part of the Acropolis of Rhodes, which stood on a hill that overlooks the port area. The ruins of a large temple, traditionally thought to have been dedicated to Apollo, are situated at the highest point of the hill. Vedder believes that the structure would actually have been a Helios sanctuary, and a portion of its enormous stone foundation could have served as the supporting platform for the Colossus. Modern Colossus projects In 2008, The Guardian reported that a modern Colossus was to be built at the harbour entrance by the German artist Gert Hof leading a Cologne-based team. It was to be a giant light sculpture made partially out of melted-down weapons from around the world. It would cost up to €200 million. In December 2015, a group of European architects announced plans to build a modern Colossus bestriding two piers at the harbour entrance, despite a preponderance of evidence and scholarly opinion that the original monument could not have stood there. The new statue, 150 metres (490 ft) tall (five times the height of the original), would cost an estimated US$283 million, funded by private donations and crowdsourcing. The statue would include a cultural centre, a library, an exhibition hall, and a lighthouse, all powered by solar panels. No such plans were carried out, however, and the website for the project went offline. See also Twelve Metal Colossi The Colossus of Rhodes (Dalí) The Colossus of Rhodes (Sergio Leone) The New Colossus The Rhodes Colossus List of tallest statues List of tallest structures built before the 20th century References Notes References Sources Further reading Higgins, Michael Denis (2023). The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, engineering, and technology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1976-4815-5. Jones, Kenneth R. (2014). "Alcaeus of Messene, Philip V and the Colossus of Rhodes: A re-examination of Anth. Pal. 6.171". The Classical Quarterly. 64 (1): 136–151. doi:10.1017/S0009838813000591. Romer, John; Romer, Elizabeth (1995). The Seven Wonders of the World: A history of the modern imagination (1st American ed.). New York, NY: Henry Holt. Woods, David (2016). "On the alleged Arab destruction of the Colossus of Rhodes c. 653". Byzantion: Revue Internationale des Études Byzantines. 86: 441–451.

List_of_tallest_statues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_statues

This list of tallest statues includes completed statues that are at least 50 m (160 ft) tall. The height values in this list are measured to the highest part of the human (or animal) figure, but exclude the height of any pedestal (plinth), or other base platform as well as any mast, spire, or other structure that extends higher than the tallest figure in the monument. The definition of statue for this list is a free-standing sculpture (as opposed to a relief), representing one or more people or animals (real or mythical), in their entirety or partially (such as a bust). Heights stated are those of the statue itself and (separately) the total height of the monument that includes structures the statue is standing on or holding. Monuments that contain statues are included in this list only if the statue fulfills these and the height criteria. Existing By country/region Destroyed Proposed or under construction See also List of statues List of tallest bridges List of tallest buildings List of tallest structures List of the tallest statues in the United States List of the tallest statues in India List of tallest Hindu statues List of colossal sculpture in situ List of largest monoliths New 7 Wonders of the World Notes References External links Top 10 highest monuments – Architecture Portal News Archived 13 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine Top highest monuments in the World (in Italian) 中國13尊大佛 The tallest statues in the world – Video By Top 10 Hindi

Magnum_P.I._(2018_TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_P.I._(2018_TV_series)

Magnum P.I. is an American action drama television series developed by Peter M. Lenkov and Eric Guggenheim. It stars Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, the titular private investigator and former Navy SEAL who solves crimes in Hawaii. It is a reboot of the original series of the same name created by Donald P. Bellisario and Glen A. Larson, which aired from 1980 to 1988. The series co-stars Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Amy Hill, and Tim Kang. It was ordered to series in May 2018, and premiered on September 24, 2018, on CBS. On October 19, 2018, it was announced that the series had received a full season order from CBS. In April 2021, the series was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on October 1, 2021. Despite being a Top 25 show in viewers, in May 2022, the series was canceled after four seasons, following the network's failure to reach a new agreement with rights holders CBS Studios and Universal Television. On June 30, 2022, the series was picked up by NBC with a two-season, twenty-episode order, later clarified to be produced and broadcast as a two-part fifth season. The fifth season premiered on February 19, 2023. In June 2023, it was announced that the fifth season would be the final season. The series ended on January 3, 2024. Magnum P.I. takes place in the same fictional universe as two other series, both also developed by Lenkov and both also reboots of earlier crime shows: Hawaii Five-0 and MacGyver. The three shows have been collectively referred to as the "Lenkov-verse". Initially, the series aired on Monday nights at 9:00 p.m., but aired its latter three CBS seasons on Friday nights in the same timeslot, immediately followed by Blue Bloods starring Tom Selleck, who portrayed the title character from the original series. Premise Similar to the original series, Magnum P.I. revolves around the titular ex-United States Navy SEAL, Thomas Magnum, who occupies the guest house on Robin's Nest, the Hawaiian Estate owned by famous author Robin Masters. In exchange for allowing Magnum to live in his guest house, Masters writes a fictional book series about a "white knight" centered around Magnum's time in the military. In addition, Magnum works for Masters as a security consultant; despite this, Masters never appears in the series. Also living on the estate are Juliet Higgins, an ex-MI6 agent who serves as the estate's majordomo, and native Hawaiian Kumu Tuileta, who is the estate's cultural curator. Magnum's living arrangement gives him access to the guest house and Masters' Ferrari 488 Spider but does not come with a salary, so he solves crimes as a private investigator. His investigations often include Higgins, who officially joins him as his partner in the second season. The two are frequently assisted by ex-United States Marines, Orville "Rick" Wright and Theodore "T.C." Calvin. Rick is now a bar owner, while T.C. is a pilot whose main business is running helicopter tours of the islands. Gordon Katsumoto is a detective for the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) who frequently disagrees with Magnum's investigative methods, but nonetheless respects his crime-solving expertise. Despite both having serious relationships throughout the first four seasons, Magnum and Higgins often share sexual tension with each other, which is finally addressed in the fourth season finale. Rick also finds himself in a serious relationship in the latter half of the series, leading to his girlfriend giving birth to their child. Meanwhile, the divorced Katsumoto often faces trouble with his son, and T.C. becomes a father figure to a homeless teenager in the fourth season. The show shares a direct fictional universe with Hawaii Five-0. The six main characters of Magnum P.I. share many allies with the Five-0 Task Force, including further law enforcement professionals, confidential informants, and city employees. Cast Main Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, an ex-US Navy SEAL who is a security consultant and private investigator Perdita Weeks as Juliet Higgins, an ex-MI6 agent who is majordomo of Robin Masters' estate and Magnum's investigative partner Zachary Knighton as Orville "Rick" Wright, a retired Marine Sergeant who runs his own tiki bar Stephen Hill as Theodore "T.C." Calvin, a retired Marine Major and pilot who runs helicopter tours of Hawaii Amy Hill as Teuila "Kumu" Tuileta, the curator for the cultural center on Masters' estate Tim Kang as Gordon Katsumoto, a Honolulu Police Department detective Recurring James Remar as Captain Buck Greene (seasons 2 and 5; guest season 1) Domenick Lombardozzi as Sebastian Nuzo (season 1; guest seasons 2 and 4) Corbin Bernsen as Francis "Icepick" Hofstetler (seasons 1–3) Christopher Thornton as Kenny "Shammy" Shamberg Bobby Lee as Jin Jeong (seasons 2–5) Betsy Phillips as Suzy Madison (season 3; guest seasons 2, 4 and 5) Jay Ali as Dr. Ethan Shah (season 3; guest season 4) Lance Lim as Dennis Katsumoto (season 3; guest seasons 4–5) Chantal Thuy as HPD Detective Lia Kaleo (season 4) Martin Martinez as Cade Jensen (seasons 4-5) Michael Delara as Gabriel Santos/M.E. Tech (season 4) Michael Rady as HPD Detective Chris Childs (season 5) Crossover characters from Hawaii Five-0 Kimee Balmilero as medical examiner Noelani Cunha (seasons 1–3) Taylor Wily as entrepreneur Kamekona Tupuola (seasons 1–2) Dennis Chun as HPD Sergeant Duke Lukela Shawn Mokuahi Garnett as Flippa (seasons 2–3) Kala Alexander as Kawika (season 1) Larry Manetti as Nicky "The Kid" DeMarco (season 2 and 5) William Forsythe as Private Investigator Harry Brown (season 2) Willie Garson as Gerard Hirsch (season 2) Beulah Koale as Officer Junior Reigns (season 2) Meaghan Rath as Officer Tani Rey (season 2) Katrina Law as Sergeant Quinn Liu (season 2) Ian Anthony Dale as Officer Adam Noshimuri (season 2) Episodes Production Development In October 2017, CBS announced development of a reboot of Magnum, P.I. from Peter M. Lenkov, who also developed the 2010 reboot of Hawaii Five-O and the 2016 reboot of MacGyver. The network ordered a pilot production commitment for the series with Lenkov and Eric Guggenheim, a Hawaii Five-0 writer and co-showrunner, as developers. John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment were reported as additional executive producers. CBS Television Studios and Universal Television co-produced the series. Danielle Woodrow was also later announced to be serving as an executive producer. The series was initially picked up by CBS for thirteen episodes, and an additional seven episodes were later ordered. On January 25, 2019, Magnum P.I. was renewed for a second season along with two other CBS freshman series. Lenkov returned for the second season as an executive producer and co-showrunner after signing a three-year deal with CBS Television Studios in 2018. Guggenheim also returned as executive producer and co-showrunner. It was later revealed that the second season would consist of twenty episodes. On May 6, 2020, CBS renewed the series for a third season, along with eighteen other television shows. In July 2020, it was revealed that Lenkov would not have any involvement in the third season after being fired from CBS over toxic work environment allegations. He was originally expected to continue work on the series throughout the season as part of the previously signed deal. Lucas Till who portrays the title character of Angus MacGyver on MacGyver stated that Lenkov made him suicidal and constantly body shamed him. Lenkov's lawyers initially denied all allegations. Lenkov later responded to the situation by stating "It's difficult to hear that the working environment I ran was not the working environment my colleagues deserved, and for that, I am deeply sorry. I accept responsibility for what I am hearing and am committed to doing the work that is required to do better and be better." Lenkov still received writing credits for various episodes throughout the season written prior to his termination. Gene Hong replaced Lenkov as co-showrunner joining Guggenheim who continued working on the series. In October 2020 it was reported that the third season would have a reduced episode order of sixteen episodes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 15, 2021, CBS renewed the series for a fourth season, which premiered on October 1, 2021. Casting On February 20, 2018, it was announced that Jay Hernandez had been cast as Thomas Magnum, who was portrayed by Tom Selleck in the original series. Perdita Weeks was cast as Juliet Higgins on March 2, 2018. The character of Higgins was genderswapped, from their 1980 counterpart Jonathan Higgins. Lenkov and Guggenheim stated that while they wanted to honour the original show it was important for the reboot to "stand on its own" and genderswapping allowed for differentiation. Zachary Knighton and Stephen Hill were later cast as Orville "Rick" Wright and Theodore "T.C." Calvin, respectively. Tim Kang and Amy Hill were the last two to be cast in the series, as Detective Gordon Katsumoto and Kumu, respectively. Kimee Balmilero, Taylor Wily, and Dennis Chun all appeared as their Hawaii Five-0 characters throughout the first season. Chun guest starred on the original Magnum, P.I. as various minor characters throughout its run. Domenick Lombardozzi, Ken Jeong, and Christopher Thornton were cast in recurring roles. Former NFL and CFL football player Carl Weathers, MLB baseball player Christian Yelich, and NASCAR driver Ryan Blaney all appeared as guest stars. Betsy Phillips, series star Zachary Knighton's wife, appeared in the first season's final episode. Christopher Thornton continued to recur throughout the second, third, and fourth seasons. Bobby Lee was introduced as a new recurring character in the second season and also returned for guest appearances in the third and fourth. Numerous professional athletes appeared in guest roles throughout the second season, including Deontay Wilder, a World Boxing Council heavyweight champion; Aaron Donald and Andre Reed, National Football League players; Hans Hedemann, a competitive surfer; and Cowboy Cerrone, an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial artist. Patrick Monahan, Skyler Grey, and Jerry Becker, appeared as themselves in season two and performed as their real world band Train. Balmilero, Wily, and Chun also made appearances throughout the second season as their Hawaii Five-0 characters. Other Hawaii Five-0 actors new to the second season include series regulars Meaghan Rath, Katrina Law, Beulah Koale, and Ian Anthony Dale, all of whom appeared as their Hawaii Five-0 characters. Larry Manetti and Roger E. Mosley, who co-starred in the original Magnum, P.I., made guest appearances on the reboot. However, Tom Selleck stated in an interview that he would never appear in the series, even though he was asked, so as not to take away from the original Magnum, P.I. and due to conflicting filming of Blue Bloods, which also airs on CBS. On October 16, 2020, it was announced that Jay Ali had been cast in a recurring role for the third season as Dr. Ethan Shah. It was later revealed that Lance Lim would also recur in the third season. Mosley again returned as a guest star in the third season. Balmilero, Chun, and Garnett from Hawaii Five-0 continued appearances in the third season despite Hawaii Five-0's cancellation. Chantal Thuy joined the cast in a recurring capacity for the fourth season. Thuy portrayed Lia Kaleo, an HPD detective and partner to Katsumoto, as well as a love interest to Magnum. Martin Martinez also joined the recurring cast for the fourth season portraying Cade Jensen, a trouble teenager searching for a job. Chun appeared once more in the fourth season. Ahead of the fifth season Michael Rady was cast in a recurring role to portray Detective Chris Childs. Filming The pilot episode filmed in March and April 2018 at Hawaii Film Studio. It was directed by Justin Lin, who also directed other CBS pilots. The rest of the first season began filming on July 23, 2018, with a traditional Hawaiian blessing. Filming for the series takes place in the state of Hawaii on the island of O'ahu at Kalaeloa Studio. The fictional Robin's Nest Estate where Magnum and Higgins lives is located at Kualoa Ranch, a location which Jurassic World also used as a filming location. Other filming locations include numerous beaches, such as Maili, Waikiki, and Kapolei. A central theme of the original series was Magnum's constant use of a Ferrari, which has become a cultural icon inextricably linked to the series. Then Magnum almost exclusively favored the Ferrari 308 GTS, such that it was briefly shown in the pilot episode. The production team, however, updated his favored vehicle to a Ferrari 488 Spider. Both cars are a mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2-seat, roadster variant of the current V8 Ferrari. Filming for the second season also began with a traditional Hawaiian blessing on July 8, 2019. A new filming location in the second season is the La Mariana Restaurant, an operating Tiki Bar in Hawaii. Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, filming for the third season began on September 16, 2020. COVID-19 protocols were required on set including masks, social distancing, COVID testing, and reduced cast and crew on set. Fourth season filming commenced on July 20, 2021, with many COVID-19 precautions still in place. The fourth season also introduced new crew members to production after a number of those who worked on previous seasons transferred to work on NCIS: Hawaiʻi. Cancellation and revival On May 12, 2022, CBS canceled the series after four seasons. Cancellation of the series had negative effects on Hawaii's film industry, leaving 350–400 people without employment. However, on May 23, 2022, it was reported by TVLine that Universal Television was trying to shop the series around. Ten days later, Deadline Hollywood reported that talks were underway for Universal to carry the series in-house via NBC and/or USA. Such a move would have required a deal with CBS Studios by June 30, 2022, when the cast members' options on their contracts ended. Although not officially renewed, Production Weekly reported a fifth season to be in "active development", though with no network attached to the listing. On June 30, 2022, NBC officially picked up the series for 20 episodes, initially to be split over two 10-episode seasons, with the option for more episodes. At the time, it was reported that all six cast members were expected to return, along with the executive producers, and CBS Studios and Universal TV would continue to co-produce the series. On July 4, 2022, it was reported by TVLine that production on the fifth season would begin in late 2022, with the season not likely to premiere until January 2023 at the earliest. Filming for the fifth season began on September 19, 2022. The fifth season premiered on February 19, 2023. It was later clarified that the twenty episodes would be split as a two-part fifth season rather than into two separate seasons. On June 23, 2023, it was announced that the fifth season would be the final season. On December 15, 2023, it was revealed that the fifth season would finish with a two-hour series finale on January 3, 2024. Streaming Magnum P.I. was added to Amazon Freevee on September 1, 2023. Reception Critical response Magnum P.I. has been met with mixed reviews. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds an approval rating of 57% with an average rating of 6.35/10, based on 21 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "The rebooted Magnum P.I. may not be quite distinctive enough to hold up to comparisons with its source material, but a charismatic star, slickly staged action, and a handful of modern twists hint at greater potential." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the first season a score of 48 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Ratings Notes References External links Magnum P.I. at IMDb Magnum P.I. at epguides.com

Christopher_Thornton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thornton

Christopher Thornton (born March 29, 1967) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Kenny "Shammy" Shamberg in Magnum P.I., and has had numerous other film and television roles from 1990 to the present. Early life and education Thornton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was an amateur opera singer who appeared in local theater. Christopher appeared in several plays while majoring in theater at the University of New Orleans, but quit college after two years to relocate to Los Angeles and train at the Stella Adler Conservatory. Career Thornton made his first feature film appearance in the 1990 horror sequel Watchers II, playing a young man who gets his eyes gouged out by the mutant antagonist. Only two years later, at age 25, Thornton suffered a tragic accident while rock climbing which fractured two vertebrae and left him paralyzed from the waist down. He returned to mostly theater roles for the remainder of the 1990s. In 2000, he was cast to play Hamlet at the Lillian Theater in Los Angeles. Believed to be the first actor to ever play the iconic Shakespeare character in a wheelchair, Thornton's performance won rave reviews. Thornton has gone on to appear in numerous film and television roles. He has recurred in TV series such as Any Day Now, Rules of Engagement and Vice Principals, and had guest roles in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Alias, Brothers & Sisters, My Name Is Earl, Grey's Anatomy and Will & Grace. Since 2018, he has played recurring character Kenny "Shammy" Shamberg, a marine veteran paralyzed during a tour of duty in Iraq, on the CBS reboot of Magnum P.I. Thornton was both writer and lead actor for the 2010 film Sympathy for Delicious, playing disc jockey "Delicious" Dean O'Dwyer. Filmography Film Television External links Christopher Thornton at IMDb == References ==

Apollo_11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted by the United States from July 16 to July 24, 1969. It marked the first time in history that humans landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes, before lifting off to rejoin Columbia. Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used Eagle's ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space. Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively proved U.S. victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Background In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was engaged in the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and challenged American claims of military, economic, and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race to prove which superpower would achieve superior spaceflight capability. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the Sputnik challenge by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and initiating Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit. But on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth. Nearly a month later, on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, completing a 15-minute suborbital journey. After being recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, he received a congratulatory telephone call from Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy. Since the Soviet Union had higher lift capacity launch vehicles, Kennedy chose, from among options presented by NASA, a challenge beyond the capacity of the existing generation of rocketry, so that the US and Soviet Union would be starting from a position of equality. A crewed mission to the Moon would serve this purpose. On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed the United States Congress on "Urgent National Needs" and declared: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade [1960s] is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there. On September 12, 1962, Kennedy delivered another speech before a crowd of about 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium in Houston, Texas. A widely quoted refrain from the middle portion of the speech reads as follows: There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. In spite of that, the proposed program faced the opposition of many Americans and was dubbed a "moondoggle" by Norbert Wiener, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The effort to land a man on the Moon already had a name: Project Apollo. When Kennedy met with Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union in June 1961, he proposed making the Moon landing a joint project, but Khrushchev did not take up the offer. Kennedy again proposed a joint expedition to the Moon in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 1963. The idea of a joint Moon mission was abandoned after Kennedy's death. An early and crucial decision was choosing lunar orbit rendezvous over both direct ascent and Earth orbit rendezvous. A space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver in which two spacecraft navigate through space and meet up. In July 1962 NASA head James Webb announced that lunar orbit rendezvous would be used and that the Apollo spacecraft would have three major parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. This design meant the spacecraft could be launched by a single Saturn V rocket that was then under development. Technologies and techniques required for Apollo were developed by Project Gemini. The Apollo project was enabled by NASA's adoption of new advances in semiconductor device, including metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) and silicon integrated circuit (IC) chips in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died, and the subsequent investigation. In October 1968, Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit, and in December Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit. In March 1969, Apollo 9 put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit, and in May Apollo 10 conducted a "dress rehearsal" in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon. The Soviet Union appeared to be winning the Space Race by beating the US to firsts, but its early lead was overtaken by the US Gemini program and Soviet failure to develop the N1 launcher, which would have been comparable to the Saturn V. The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of uncrewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home. The Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. Personnel Prime crew The initial crew assignment of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin on the backup crew for Apollo 9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of Gemini 12. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11. There would be one change. Michael Collins, the CMP on the Apollo 8 crew, began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew, and when Collins recovered he joined Armstrong's crew as CMP. In the meantime, Fred Haise filled in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8. Apollo 11 was the second American mission where all the crew members had prior spaceflight experience, the first being Apollo 10. The next was STS-26 in 1988. Deke Slayton gave Armstrong the option to replace Aldrin with Lovell, since some thought Aldrin was difficult to work with. Armstrong had no issues working with Aldrin but thought it over for a day before declining. He thought Lovell deserved to command his own mission (eventually Apollo 13). The Apollo 11 prime crew had none of the close cheerful camaraderie characterized by that of Apollo 12. Instead, they forged an amiable working relationship. Armstrong in particular was notoriously aloof, but Collins, who considered himself a loner, confessed to rebuffing Aldrin's attempts to create a more personal relationship. Aldrin and Collins described the crew as "amiable strangers". Armstrong did not agree with the assessment, and said "... all the crews I was on worked very well together." Backup crew The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander, William Anders as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo 8. In early 1969, Anders accepted a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Council effective August 1969, and announced he would retire as an astronaut at that time. Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable. By the normal crew rotation in place during Apollo, Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise were scheduled to fly on Apollo 14, but the three of them were bumped to Apollo 13: there was a crew issue for Apollo 13 as none of them except Edgar Mitchell flew in space again. George Mueller rejected the crew and this was the first time an Apollo crew was rejected. To give Alan Shepard more training time, Lovell's crew were bumped to Apollo 13. Mattingly would later be replaced by Jack Swigert as CMP on Apollo 13. Support crew During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists and mission ground rules, and ensured the prime and backup crews were apprised of changes. They developed procedures, especially those for emergency situations, so these were ready for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them. For Apollo 11, the support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly, Ronald Evans and Bill Pogue. Capsule communicators The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo 11, the CAPCOMs were: Charles Duke, Ronald Evans, Bruce McCandless II, James Lovell, William Anders, Ken Mattingly, Fred Haise, Don L. Lind, Owen K. Garriott and Harrison Schmitt. Flight directors The flight directors for this mission were: Other key personnel Other key personnel who played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission include the following. Preparations Insignia The Apollo 11 mission emblem was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". At Lovell's suggestion, he chose the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, as the symbol. Tom Wilson, a simulator instructor, suggested an olive branch in its beak to represent their peaceful mission. Collins added a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins decided the Eagle and the Moon would be in their natural colors, and decided on a blue and gold border. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11", and they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing". An illustrator at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) did the artwork, which was then sent off to NASA officials for approval. The design was rejected. Bob Gilruth, the director of the MSC felt the talons of the eagle looked "too warlike". After some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the talons. When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979. Call signs After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office at the MSC, to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. The name Snowcone was used for the CM and Haystack was used for the LM in both internal and external communications during early mission planning. The LM was named Eagle after the motif which was featured prominently on the mission insignia. At Scheer's suggestion, the CM was named Columbia after Columbiad, the giant cannon that launched a spacecraft (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. It also referred to Columbia, a historical name of the United States. In Collins' 1976 book, he said Columbia was in reference to Christopher Columbus. Mementos The astronauts had personal preference kits (PPKs), small bags containing personal items of significance they wanted to take with them on the mission. Five 0.5-pound (0.23 kg) PPKs were carried on Apollo 11: three (one for each astronaut) were stowed on Columbia before launch, and two on Eagle. Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer's left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing, along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on that mission and given to Slayton afterwards, but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton. Armstrong took it with him on Apollo 11. Site selection NASA's Apollo Site Selection Board announced five potential landing sites on February 8, 1968. These were the result of two years' worth of studies based on high-resolution photography of the lunar surface by the five uncrewed probes of the Lunar Orbiter program and information about surface conditions provided by the Surveyor program. The best Earth-bound telescopes could not resolve features with the resolution Project Apollo required. The landing site had to be close to the lunar equator to minimize the amount of propellant required, clear of obstacles to minimize maneuvering, and flat to simplify the task of the landing radar. Scientific value was not a consideration. Areas that appeared promising on photographs taken on Earth were often found to be totally unacceptable. The original requirement that the site be free of craters had to be relaxed, as no such site was found. Five sites were considered: Sites 1 and 2 were in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis); Site 3 was in the Central Bay (Sinus Medii); and Sites 4 and 5 were in the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum). The final site selection was based on seven criteria: The site needed to be smooth, with relatively few craters; with approach paths free of large hills, tall cliffs or deep craters that might confuse the landing radar and cause it to issue incorrect readings; reachable with a minimum amount of propellant; allowing for delays in the launch countdown; providing the Apollo spacecraft with a free-return trajectory, one that would allow it to coast around the Moon and safely return to Earth without requiring any engine firings should a problem arise on the way to the Moon; with good visibility during the landing approach, meaning the Sun would be between 7 and 20 degrees behind the LM; and a general slope of less than two degrees in the landing area. The requirement for the Sun angle was particularly restrictive, limiting the launch date to one day per month. A landing just after dawn was chosen to limit the temperature extremes the astronauts would experience. The Apollo Site Selection Board selected Site 2, with Sites 3 and 5 as backups in the event of the launch being delayed. In May 1969, Apollo 10's lunar module flew to within 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) of Site 2, and reported it was acceptable. First-step decision During the first press conference after the Apollo 11 crew was announced, the first question was, "Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step onto the lunar surface?" Slayton told the reporter it had not been decided, and Armstrong added that it was "not based on individual desire". One of the first versions of the egress checklist had the lunar module pilot exit the spacecraft before the commander, which matched what had been done on Gemini missions, where the commander had never performed the spacewalk. Reporters wrote in early 1969 that Aldrin would be the first man to walk on the Moon, and Associate Administrator George Mueller told reporters he would be first as well. Aldrin heard that Armstrong would be the first because Armstrong was a civilian, which made Aldrin livid. Aldrin attempted to persuade other lunar module pilots he should be first, but they responded cynically about what they perceived as a lobbying campaign. Attempting to stem interdepartmental conflict, Slayton told Aldrin that Armstrong would be first since he was the commander. The decision was announced in a press conference on April 14, 1969. For decades, Aldrin believed the final decision was largely driven by the lunar module's hatch location. Because the astronauts had their spacesuits on and the spacecraft was so small, maneuvering to exit the spacecraft was difficult. The crew tried a simulation in which Aldrin left the spacecraft first, but he damaged the simulator while attempting to egress. While this was enough for mission planners to make their decision, Aldrin and Armstrong were left in the dark on the decision until late spring. Slayton told Armstrong the plan was to have him leave the spacecraft first, if he agreed. Armstrong said, "Yes, that's the way to do it." The media accused Armstrong of exercising his commander's prerogative to exit the spacecraft first. Chris Kraft revealed in his 2001 autobiography that a meeting occurred between Gilruth, Slayton, Low, and himself to make sure Aldrin would not be the first to walk on the Moon. They argued that the first person to walk on the Moon should be like Charles Lindbergh, a calm and quiet person. They made the decision to change the flight plan so the commander was the first to egress from the spacecraft. Pre-launch The ascent stage of LM-5 Eagle arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on January 8, 1969, followed by the descent stage four days later, and CSM-107 Columbia on January 23. There were several differences between Eagle and Apollo 10's LM-4 Snoopy; Eagle had a VHF radio antenna to facilitate communication with the astronauts during their EVA on the lunar surface; a lighter ascent engine; more thermal protection on the landing gear; and a package of scientific experiments known as the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP). The only change in the configuration of the command module was the removal of some insulation from the forward hatch. The CSM was mated on January 29, and moved from the Operations and Checkout Building to the Vehicle Assembly Building on April 14. The S-IVB third stage of Saturn V AS-506 had arrived on January 18, followed by the S-II second stage on February 6, S-IC first stage on February 20, and the Saturn V Instrument Unit on February 27. At 12:30 on May 20, the 5,443-tonne (5,357-long-ton; 6,000-short-ton) assembly departed the Vehicle Assembly Building atop the crawler-transporter, bound for Launch Pad 39A, part of Launch Complex 39, while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon. A countdown test commenced on June 26, and concluded on July 2. The launch complex was floodlit on the night of July 15, when the crawler-transporter carried the mobile service structure back to its parking area. In the early hours of the morning, the fuel tanks of the S-II and S-IVB stages were filled with liquid hydrogen. Fueling was completed by three hours before launch. Launch operations were partly automated, with 43 programs written in the ATOLL programming language. Slayton roused the crew shortly after 04:00, and they showered, shaved, and had the traditional pre-flight breakfast of steak and eggs with Slayton and the backup crew. They then donned their space suits and began breathing pure oxygen. At 06:30, they headed out to Launch Complex 39. Haise entered Columbia about three hours and ten minutes before launch time. Along with a technician, he helped Armstrong into the left-hand couch at 06:54. Five minutes later, Collins joined him, taking up his position on the right-hand couch. Finally, Aldrin entered, taking the center couch. Haise left around two hours and ten minutes before launch. The closeout crew sealed the hatch, and the cabin was purged and pressurized. The closeout crew then left the launch complex about an hour before launch time. The countdown became automated at three minutes and twenty seconds before launch time. Over 450 personnel were at the consoles in the firing room. Mission Launch and flight to lunar orbit An estimated one million spectators watched the launch of Apollo 11 from the highways and beaches in the vicinity of the launch site. Dignitaries included the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General William Westmoreland, four cabinet members, 19 state governors, 40 mayors, 60 ambassadors and 200 congressmen. Vice President Spiro Agnew viewed the launch with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson. Around 3,500 media representatives were present. About two-thirds were from the United States; the rest came from 55 other countries. The launch was televised live in 33 countries, with an estimated 25 million viewers in the United States alone. Millions more around the world listened to radio broadcasts. President Richard Nixon viewed the launch from his office in the White House with his NASA liaison officer, Apollo astronaut Frank Borman. Saturn V AS-506 launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 EDT). At 13.2 seconds into the flight, the launch vehicle began to roll into its flight azimuth of 72.058°. Full shutdown of the first-stage engines occurred about 2 minutes and 42 seconds into the mission, followed by separation of the S-IC and ignition of the S-II engines. The second stage engines then cut off and separated at about 9 minutes and 8 seconds, allowing the first ignition of the S-IVB engine a few seconds later. Apollo 11 entered a near-circular Earth orbit at an altitude of 100.4 nautical miles (185.9 km) by 98.9 nautical miles (183.2 km), twelve minutes into its flight. After one and a half orbits, a second ignition of the S-IVB engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, with Collins in the left seat and at the controls, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed. This involved separating Columbia from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with Eagle still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon. This was done to avoid the third stage colliding with the spacecraft, the Earth, or the Moon. A slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an orbit around the Sun. On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of the crater Sabine D. The site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers and the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and because it was unlikely to present major landing or EVA challenges. It lay about 25 kilometers (16 mi) southeast of the Surveyor 5 landing site, and 68 kilometers (42 mi) southwest of Ranger 8's crash site. Lunar descent At 12:52:00 UTC on July 20, Aldrin and Armstrong entered Eagle, and began the final preparations for lunar descent. At 17:44:00 Eagle separated from Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged, and that the landing gear was correctly deployed. Armstrong exclaimed: "The Eagle has wings!" As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves passing landmarks on the surface two or three seconds early, and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point. Eagle was traveling too fast. The problem could have been mascons—concen­tra­tions of high mass in a region or regions of the Moon's crust that contains a gravitational anomaly, potentially altering Eagle's trajectory. Flight Director Gene Kranz speculated that it could have resulted from extra air pressure in the docking tunnel, or a result of Eagle's pirouette maneuver. Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surface of the Moon, the LM guidance computer (LGC) distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center, computer engineer Jack Garman told Guidance Officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all its tasks in real-time and had to postpone some of them. Margaret Hamilton, the Director of Apollo Flight Computer Programming at the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory later recalled: To blame the computer for the Apollo 11 problems is like blaming the person who spots a fire and calls the fire department. Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software. The software's action, in this case, was to eliminate lower priority tasks and re-establish the more important ones. The computer, rather than almost forcing an abort, prevented an abort. If the computer hadn't recognized this problem and taken recovery action, I doubt if Apollo 11 would have been the successful Moon landing it was. During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time. Software engineer Don Eyles concluded in a 2005 Guidance and Control Conference paper that the problem was due to a hardware design bug previously seen during testing of the first uncrewed LM in Apollo 5. Having the rendezvous radar on (so it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort) should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up. The extra spurious cycle stealing, as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms. Landing When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300-foot-diameter (91 m) crater (later determined to be West crater), so he took semi-automatic control. Armstrong considered landing short of the boulder field so they could collect geological samples from it, but could not since their horizontal velocity was too high. Throughout the descent, Aldrin called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting Eagle. Now 107 feet (33 m) above the surface, Armstrong knew their propellant supply was dwindling and was determined to land at the first possible landing site. Armstrong found a clear patch of ground and maneuvered the spacecraft towards it. As he got closer, now 250 feet (76 m) above the surface, he discovered his new landing site had a crater in it. He cleared the crater and found another patch of level ground. They were now 100 feet (30 m) from the surface, with only 90 seconds of propellant remaining. Lunar dust kicked up by the LM's engine began to impair his ability to determine the spacecraft's motion. Some large rocks jutted out of the dust cloud, and Armstrong focused on them during his descent so he could determine the spacecraft's speed. A light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67-inch (170 cm) probes hanging from Eagle's footpads had touched the surface a few moments before the landing and he said: "Contact light!" Armstrong was supposed to immediately shut the engine down, as the engineers suspected the pressure caused by the engine's own exhaust reflecting off the lunar surface could make it explode, but he forgot. Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong shut the engine down. Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA—out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged: "Out of detent. Auto." Aldrin continued: "Mode control—both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm—off. 413 is in." ACA was the Attitude Control Assembly—the LM's control stick. Output went to the LGC to command the reaction control system (RCS) jets to fire. "Out of Detent" meant the stick had moved away from its centered position; it was spring-centered like the turn indicator in a car. Address 413 of the Abort Guidance System (AGS) contained the variable that indicated the LM had landed. Eagle landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with 216 pounds (98 kg) of usable fuel remaining. Information available to the crew and mission controllers during the landing showed the LM had enough fuel for another 25 seconds of powered flight before an abort without touchdown would have become unsafe, but post-mission analysis showed that the real figure was probably closer to 50 seconds. Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than most subsequent missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of the propellant sloshing more than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this. Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post-landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to the CAPCOM, Charles Duke, with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan—Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot." Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth: This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way. He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. For this reason, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, Dean Woodruff. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20. The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period, but they chose to begin preparations for the EVA early, thinking they would be unable to sleep. Lunar surface operations Preparations for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk on the Moon began at 23:43 UTC. These took longer than expected; three and a half hours instead of two. During training on Earth, everything required had been neatly laid out in advance, but on the Moon the cabin contained a large number of other items as well, such as checklists, food packets, and tools. Six hours and thirty-nine minutes after landing, Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, and Eagle was depressurized. Eagle's hatch was opened at 02:39:33. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his portable life support system (PLSS). Some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress. At 02:51 Armstrong began his descent to the lunar surface. The remote control unit on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera. Apollo 11 used slow-scan television (TV) incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor (thus, a broadcast of a broadcast), significantly reducing the quality of the picture. The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States, but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Despite some technical and weather difficulties, black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth. Copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, but recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were likely destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA. After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder", at 02:56:15, six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle's landing pad and declared: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. A more recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. Other analysis points to the claims of static and slurring as "face-saving fabrication", and that Armstrong himself later admitted to misspeaking the line. About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. Twelve minutes after the sample was collected, he removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod. The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA. Still photography was accomplished with a Hasselblad camera that could be operated hand-held or mounted on Armstrong's Apollo space suit. Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface. He described the view with the simple phrase: "Magnificent desolation." Armstrong said moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around." Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle's shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, but the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow. The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust, which soiled the outer part of their suits. The astronauts planted the Lunar Flag Assembly containing a flag of the United States on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Aldrin remembered, "Of all the jobs I had to do on the Moon the one I wanted to go the smoothest was the flag raising." But the astronauts struggled with the telescoping rod and could only insert the pole about 2 inches (5 cm) into the hard lunar surface. Aldrin was afraid it might topple in front of TV viewers, but gave "a crisp West Point salute". Before Aldrin could take a photo of Armstrong with the flag, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission, which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House." Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief. Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure that they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth. Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and a curiosity, and men with a vision for the future. It's an honor for us to be able to participate here today. Nixon: Thank you very much, and I look forward, all of us look forward, to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday. They deployed the EASEP, which included a Passive Seismic Experiment Package used to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector array used for the lunar laser ranging experiment. Then Armstrong walked 196 feet (60 m) from the LM to take photographs at the rim of Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core samples. He used the geologist's hammer to pound in the tubes—the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11—but was unable to penetrate more than 6 inches (15 cm) deep. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes. Aldrin shoveled 6 kilograms (13 lb) of soil into the box of rocks to pack them in tightly. Two types of rocks were found in the geological samples: basalt and breccia. Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. All have subsequently been found on Earth. While on the surface, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM ladder, bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A. D. We came in peace for all mankind. At the behest of the Nixon administration to add a reference to God, NASA included the vague date as a reason to include A.D., which stands for Anno Domini ("in the year of our Lord"). Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong his metabolic rates were high, and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. As metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension. In a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon. Lunar ascent Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing 21.55 kilograms (47.5 lb) of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC). This proved to be an inefficient tool, and later missions preferred to carry equipment and samples up to the LM by hand. Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his sleeve pocket, and Aldrin tossed the bag down. Armstrong then jumped onto the ladder's third rung, and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, an empty Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. The hatch was closed again at 05:11:13. They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep. Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's World War I poem "The Soldier". The script for the speech does not make reference to Collins; as he remained onboard Columbia in orbit around the Moon, it was expected that he would be able to return the module to Earth in the event of a mission failure. While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. The nonconductive tip of a Duro felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. After more than 21+1⁄2 hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, the astronauts left behind: an Apollo 1 mission patch in memory of astronauts Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Edward White, who died when their command module caught fire during a test in January 1967; two memorial medals of Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin, who died in 1967 and 1968 respectively; a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace; and a silicon message disk carrying the goodwill statements by presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon along with messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disk also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and then-current top management. After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. At that time, unknown to them, some hundred kilometers away from them the Soviet probe Luna 15 was about to descend and impact. Despite having been known to be orbiting the Moon at the same time, through a ground-breaking precautious goodwill exchange of data, the mission control of Luna 15 unexpectedly hastened its robotic sample-return mission, initiating descent, in an attempt to return before Apollo 11. Just two hours before Apollo 11's launch Luna 15 crashed at 15:50 UTC, with British astronomers monitoring Luna 15 and recording the situation one commented: "I say, this has really been drama of the highest order", bringing the Space Race to a culmination. Roughly two hours later, at 17:54:00 UTC, the Apollo 11 crew on the surface safely lifted off in Eagle's ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit. Film taken from the LM ascent stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some 25 feet (8 m) from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over." Subsequent Apollo missions planted their flags farther from the LM. Columbia in lunar orbit During his day flying solo around the Moon, Collins never felt lonely. Although it has been said "not since Adam has any human known such solitude", Collins felt very much a part of the mission. In his autobiography he wrote: "this venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two". In the 48 minutes of each orbit when he was out of radio contact with the Earth while Columbia passed round the far side of the Moon, the feeling he reported was not fear or loneliness, but rather "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation". One of Collins' first tasks was to identify the lunar module on the ground. To give Collins an idea where to look, Mission Control radioed that they believed the lunar module landed about 4 miles (6.4 km) off target. Each time he passed over the suspected lunar landing site, he tried in vain to find the module. On his first orbits on the back side of the Moon, Collins performed maintenance activities such as dumping excess water produced by the fuel cells and preparing the cabin for Armstrong and Aldrin to return. Just before he reached the dark side on the third orbit, Mission Control informed Collins there was a problem with the temperature of the coolant. If it became too cold, parts of Columbia might freeze. Mission Control advised him to assume manual control and implement Environmental Control System Malfunction Procedure 17. Instead, Collins flicked the switch on the system from automatic to manual and back to automatic again, and carried on with normal housekeeping chores, while keeping an eye on the temperature. When Columbia came back around to the near side of the Moon again, he was able to report that the problem had been resolved. For the next couple of orbits, he described his time on the back side of the Moon as "relaxing". After Aldrin and Armstrong completed their EVA, Collins slept so he could be rested for the rendezvous. While the flight plan called for Eagle to meet up with Columbia, Collins was prepared for a contingency in which he would fly Columbia down to meet Eagle. Return Eagle rendezvoused with Columbia at 21:24 UTC on July 21, and the two docked at 21:35. Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit at 23:41. Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle's orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface. In 2021, however, some calculations show that the lander may still be in orbit. On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented: ... The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly ... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of people ... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, "Thank you very much." Aldrin added: This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown ... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" Armstrong concluded: The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11. On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg was later thanked by Armstrong. Splashdown and quarantine The aircraft carrier USS Hornet, under the command of Captain Carl J. Seiberlich, was selected as the primary recovery ship (PRS) for Apollo 11 on June 5, replacing its sister ship, the LPH USS Princeton, which had recovered Apollo 10 on May 26. Hornet was then at her home port of Long Beach, California. On reaching Pearl Harbor on July 5, Hornet embarked the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters of HS-4, a unit which specialized in recovery of Apollo spacecraft, specialized divers of UDT Detachment Apollo, a 35-man NASA recovery team, and about 120 media representatives. To make room, most of Hornet's air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a boilerplate command module used for training. On July 12, with Apollo 11 still on the launch pad, Hornet departed Pearl Harbor for the recovery area in the central Pacific, in the vicinity of 10°36′N 172°24′E. A presidential party consisting of Nixon, Borman, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew to Johnston Atoll on Air Force One, then to the command ship USS Arlington in Marine One. After a night on board, they would fly to Hornet in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. On arrival aboard Hornet, the party was greeted by the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who flew to Hornet from Pago Pago in one of Hornet's carrier onboard delivery aircraft. Weather satellites were not yet common, but US Air Force Captain Hank Brandli had access to top-secret spy satellite images. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area. Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule difficult, and strong upper-level winds which "would have ripped their parachutes to shreds" according to Brandli, posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission. Brandli alerted Navy Captain Willard S. Houston Jr., the commander of the Fleet Weather Center at Pearl Harbor, who had the required security clearance. On their recommendation, Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, commander of Manned Spaceflight Recovery Forces, Pacific, advised NASA to change the recovery area, each man risking his career. A new location was selected 215 nautical miles (398 km) northeast. This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, trajectory event P64 was followed by P67. For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip. In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead, P65 led directly to P67. The crew were also warned they would not be in a full-lift (heads-down) attitude when they entered P67. The first program's acceleration subjected the astronauts to 6.5 standard gravities (64 m/s2); the second, to 6.0 standard gravities (59 m/s2). Before dawn on July 24, Hornet launched four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 Tracers. Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon. At 16:44 UTC (05:44 local time) Columbia's drogue parachutes were deployed. This was observed by the helicopters. Seven minutes later Columbia struck the water forcefully 2,660 km (1,440 nmi) east of Wake Island, 380 km (210 nmi) south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km (13 nmi) from Hornet, at 13°19′N 169°9′W. 82 °F (28 °C) with 6 feet (1.8 m) seas and winds at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) from the east were reported under broken clouds at 1,500 feet (460 m) with visibility of 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) at the recovery site. Reconnaissance aircraft flying to the original splashdown location reported the conditions Brandli and Houston had predicted. During splashdown, Columbia landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to prevent it from drifting. More divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and positioned rafts for astronaut extraction. The divers then passed biological isolation garments (BIGs) to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site. The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and Columbia wiped with Povidone-iodine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board Hornet. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk. After touchdown on Hornet at 17:53 UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the 30 feet (9.1 m) to the Mobile quarantine facility (MQF), where they would begin the Earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life, and the quarantine process dropped. Nixon welcomed the astronauts back to Earth. He told them: "[A]s a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before." After Nixon departed, Hornet was brought alongside the 5-short-ton (4.5 t) Columbia, which was lifted aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. Hornet returned to Pearl Harbor, where the MQF was loaded onto a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center. The astronauts arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 10:00 UTC on July 28. Columbia was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. It was then taken to Hickham Air Force Base, from whence it was flown to Houston in a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, reaching the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 30. In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol, the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on Hornet, and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. On August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki), and on Columbia itself. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study. Celebrations On August 13, the three astronauts rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees. On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official state dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger and his predecessor, Earl Warren, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. Nixon and Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on September 16, 1969. They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that they had carried with them to the surface of the Moon. The flag of American Samoa on Apollo 11 is on display at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa. This celebration began a 38-day world tour that brought the astronauts to 22 countries and included visits with many world leaders. The crew toured from September 29 to November 5. The world tour started in Mexico City and ended in Tokyo. Stops on the tour in order were: Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Oslo, Cologne, Berlin, London, Rome, Belgrade, Ankara, Kinshasa, Tehran, Mumbai, Dhaka, Bangkok, Darwin, Sydney, Guam, Seoul, Tokyo and Honolulu. Many nations honored the first human Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins. Legacy Cultural significance Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. In Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing, Kennedy's speech flashed on the screen, followed by the words "TASK ACCOMPLISHED, July 1969". The success of Apollo 11 demonstrated the United States' technological superiority; and with the success of Apollo 11, America had won the Space Race. New phrases permeated into the English language. "If they can send a man to the Moon, why can't they ...?" became a common saying following Apollo 11. Armstrong's words on the lunar surface also spun off various parodies. While most people celebrated the accomplishment, disenfranchised Americans saw it as a symbol of the divide in America, evidenced by protesters led by Ralph Abernathy outside of Kennedy Space Center the day before Apollo 11 launched. NASA Administrator Thomas Paine met with Abernathy at the occasion, both hoping that the space program can spur progress also in other regards, such as poverty in the US. Paine was then asked, and agreed, to host protesters as spectators at the launch, and Abernathy, awestruck by the spectacle, prayed for the astronauts. Racial and financial inequalities frustrated citizens who wondered why money spent on the Apollo program was not spent taking care of humans on Earth. A poem by Gil Scott-Heron called "Whitey on the Moon" (1970) illustrated the racial inequality in the United States that was highlighted by the Space Race. The poem starts with: Twenty percent of the world's population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. While Apollo 11 sparked the interest of the world, the follow-on Apollo missions did not hold the interest of the nation. One possible explanation was the shift in complexity. Landing someone on the Moon was an easy goal to understand; lunar geology was too abstract for the average person. Another is that Kennedy's goal of landing humans on the Moon had already been accomplished. A well-defined objective helped Project Apollo accomplish its goal, but after it was completed it was hard to justify continuing the lunar missions. While most Americans were proud of their nation's achievements in space exploration, only once during the late 1960s did the Gallup Poll indicate that a majority of Americans favored "doing more" in space as opposed to "doing less". By 1973, 59 percent of those polled favored cutting spending on space exploration. The Space Race had been won, and Cold War tensions were easing as the US and Soviet Union entered the era of détente. This was also a time when inflation was rising, which put pressure on the government to reduce spending. What saved the space program was that it was one of the few government programs that had achieved something great. Drastic cuts, warned Caspar Weinberger, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, might send a signal that "our best years are behind us". After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically. The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt. Mstislav Keldysh said in July 1969, "We are concentrating wholly on the creation of large satellite systems." It was revealed in 1989 that the Soviets had tried to send people to the Moon, but were unable due to technological difficulties. The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it. The Apollo 11 landing is referenced in the songs "Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins" by the Byrds on the 1969 album Ballad of Easy Rider, "Coon on the Moon" by Howlin' Wolf on the 1973 album The Back Door Wolf, and "One Small Step" by Ayreon on the 2000 album Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer. Spacecraft The command module Columbia went on a tour of the United States, visiting 49 state capitals, the District of Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska. In 1971, it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and was displayed at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC. It was in the central Milestones of Flight exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X-1, North American X-15 and Friendship 7. Columbia was moved in 2017 to the NASM Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to be readied for a four-city tour titled Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission. This included Space Center Houston from October 14, 2017, to March 18, 2018, the Saint Louis Science Center from April 14 to September 3, 2018, the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from September 29, 2018, to February 18, 2019, and its last location at Museum of Flight in Seattle from March 16 to September 2, 2019. Continued renovations at the Smithsonian allowed time for an additional stop for the capsule, and it was moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The ribbon cutting ceremony was on September 29, 2019. For 40 years Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits were displayed in the museum's Apollo to the Moon exhibit, until it permanently closed on December 3, 2018, to be replaced by a new gallery which was scheduled to open in 2022. A special display of Armstrong's suit was unveiled for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019. The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar and the flotation bags are in the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, where they are on display along with a test lunar module. The descent stage of the LM Eagle remains on the Moon. In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts. The remains of the ascent stage are assumed to lie at an unknown location on the lunar surface. The ascent stage, Eagle, was not tracked after it was jettisoned. The lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make low Moon orbits unstable after a short time, leading the orbiting object to impact the surface. However, using a program developed by NASA, and high-resolution lunar gravity data, a paper was published, in 2021, indicating that Eagle might still be in orbit as late as 2020. Using the orbital elements published by NASA, a Monte Carlo method was used to generate parameter sets that bracket the uncertainties in these elements. All simulations, of the orbit, predicted that Eagle would never impact the lunar surface. In March 2012 a team of specialists financed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines from the S-IC stage that launched Apollo 11 into space. They were found on the Atlantic seabed using advanced sonar scanning. His team brought parts of two of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, a conservator discovered a serial number under the rust on one of the engines raised from the Atlantic, which NASA confirmed was from Apollo 11. The S-IVB third stage which performed Apollo 11's trans-lunar injection remains in a solar orbit near to that of Earth. Moon rocks The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For safekeeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Most of the rocks are stored in nitrogen to keep them free of moisture. They are handled only indirectly, using special tools. Over 100 research laboratories worldwide conduct studies of the samples; approximately 500 samples are prepared and sent to investigators every year. In November 1969, Nixon asked NASA to make up about 250 presentation Apollo 11 lunar sample displays for 135 nations, the fifty states of the United States and its possessions, and the United Nations. Each display included Moon dust from Apollo 11 and flags, including one of the Soviet Union, taken along by Apollo 11. The rice-sized particles were four small pieces of Moon soil weighing about 50 mg and were enveloped in a clear acrylic button about as big as a United States half-dollar coin. This acrylic button magnified the grains of lunar dust. Nixon gave the Apollo 11 lunar sample displays as goodwill gifts in 1970. Experiment results The Passive Seismic Experiment ran until the command uplink failed on August 25, 1969. The downlink failed on December 14, 1969. As of 2018, the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment remains operational. Moonwalk camera The Hasselblad camera used during the moonwalk was thought to be lost or left on the Moon surface. LM memorabilia In 2015, after Armstrong died in 2012, his widow contacted the National Air and Space Museum to inform them she had found a white cloth bag in one of Armstrong's closets. The bag contained various items, which should have been left behind in the lunar module, including the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that had been used to capture images of the first Moon landing. The camera is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum. Anniversary events 40th anniversary On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch. From July 16 to 24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred. It is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments. In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronized and released for the first time. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up an Adobe Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon. On July 20, 2009, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with President Barack Obama at the White House. "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey." On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Florida Representative Alan Grayson. A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing: It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today ... The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date ... nothing since Apollo has come close [to] the excitement that was generated by those astronauts—Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them. 50th anniversary On June 10, 2015, Congressman Bill Posey introduced resolution H.R. 2726 to the 114th session of the United States House of Representatives directing the United States Mint to design and sell commemorative coins in gold, silver and clad for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. On January 24, 2019, the Mint released the Apollo 11 Fiftieth Anniversary commemorative coins to the public on its website. A documentary film, Apollo 11, with restored footage of the 1969 event, premiered in IMAX on March 1, 2019, and broadly in theaters on March 8. The Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum and NASA sponsored the "Apollo 50 Festival" on the National Mall in Washington DC. The three-day (July 18 to 20, 2019) outdoor festival featured hands-on exhibits and activities, live performances, and speakers such as Adam Savage and NASA scientists. As part of the festival, a projection of the 363-foot (111 m) tall Saturn V rocket was displayed on the east face of the 555-foot (169 m) tall Washington Monument from July 16 through the 20th from 9:30 pm until 11:30 pm (EDT). The program also included a 17-minute show that combined full-motion video projected on the Washington Monument to recreate the assembly and launch of the Saturn V rocket. The projection was joined by a 40-foot (12 m) wide recreation of the Kennedy Space Center countdown clock and two large video screens showing archival footage to recreate the time leading up to the moon landing. There were three shows per night on July 19–20, with the last show on Saturday, delayed slightly so the portion where Armstrong first set foot on the Moon would happen exactly 50 years to the second after the actual event. On July 19, 2019, the Google Doodle paid tribute to the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, complete with a link to an animated YouTube video with voiceover by astronaut Michael Collins. Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong's sons were hosted by President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Films and documentaries Footprints on the Moon, a 1969 documentary film by Bill Gibson and Barry Coe, about the Apollo 11 mission Moonwalk One, a 1971 documentary film by Theo Kamecke Apollo 11: As It Happened, a 1994 six-hour documentary on ABC News' coverage of the event First Man, 2018 film by Damien Chazelle based on the 2005 James R. Hansen book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. Apollo 11, a 2019 documentary film by Todd Douglas Miller with restored footage of the 1969 event Chasing the Moon, a July 2019 PBS three-night six-hour documentary, directed by Robert Stone, examined the events leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. An accompanying book of the same name was also released. 8 Days: To the Moon and Back, a PBS and BBC Studios 2019 documentary film by Anthony Philipson re-enacting major portions of the Apollo 11 mission using mission audio recordings, new studio footage, NASA and news archives, and computer-generated imagery. See also Apollo in Real Time – Interactive website of Apollo 11, 13, and 17 Exploration of the Moon – Missions to the Moon List of missions to the Moon List of species that have landed on the Moon References Notes Citations In some of the following sources, times are shown in the format hours:minutes:seconds (e.g. 109:24:15), referring to the mission's Ground Elapsed Time (GET), based on the official launch time of July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC (000:00:00 GET). Sources External links "Apollo 11 transcripts" at Spacelog Apollo 11 in real time Apollo 11 Press Conference filmed by KPRC-TV at Texas Archive of the Moving Image Apollo 11 and 13 Checklists at The Museum of Flight Digital Collections. Apollo 11, 12, and 14 Traverses, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute Multimedia Garner, Robert (ed.). "Apollo 11 Partial Restoration HD Videos (Downloads)". NASA. Retrieved June 13, 2013. Remastered videos of the original landing. Dynamic timeline of lunar excursion. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera The short film Moonwalk One is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive. The short film The Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11 is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive. Apollo 11 Restored EVA Part 1 (1 hour of restored footage) Apollo 11: As They Photographed It (Augmented Reality)—The New York Times, Interactive, July 18, 2019 "Coverage of the Flight of Apollo 11" provided by Todd Kosovich for RadioTapes.com. Radio station recordings (airchecks) covering the flight of Apollo 11.

Litke_Deep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litke_Deep

Litke Deep (Russian: Жёлоб Ли́тке) is an oceanic trench in the Arctic Ocean. The deepest point, also referred to as Litke Deep, is 5,449 m (17,877 ft) below sea level. It is the closest point of the upper surface of Earth's lithosphere to Earth's center, with Challenger Deep being 14.7268 km (9.2 mi) further from Earth's centre at a bathymetric depth of 6,366.4311 km (3,955.9 mi). The deepest point in Litke Deep is the closest point on the Earth's surface to the Earth's center given that it is located along the planet's polar flattening. Based on average global sea level (mean sea level), the deepest point in Litke Deep is shallower than Challenger Deep. Litke Deep is the second deepest point in the Arctic Ocean after Molloy Deep. Topography Location The Litke Deep is located in the southwestern part of the Eurasian Basin, which stretches from northeastern part of Greenland past the Svalbard archipelago, Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya to the Taymyr Peninsula. It is situated south of the underwater ridge Gakkel Ridge roughly 350 kilometers northeast of Svalbard and roughly 220 km north of the island of Nordaustlandet. The deepest part is at 5,449 metres (17,881 feet) under sea level. Closest point to Earth's center The Challenger Deep is lower below sea level, but the Litke Deep is reported to be the closest point on the surface to Earth's center, with Molloy Deep a very close second. The seabed at Litke Deep is the fixed point on Earth that has the least distance from the center – because of the oblate spheroid shape of the planet Earth, which is flatter at poles and thicker at the equator. Application of the formula at Earth radius shows that the Earth's radius is 14.7268 km (9 mi) lesser at Litke Deep than at Challenger Deep. Litke Deep is closer to North Pole at 82°24’ N and the difference between Earth's diameter at poles and equator is greater than the depth at Challenger Deep (10,925 m (35,843 ft) below sea level), around 11°22' north, nearer to equator with sea level also having the difference. Despite being 5,475 m (17,963 ft) shallower in depth below sea level, it is 6,351.7043 km (3,946.8 mi) from the Earth's center, 14.7268 km (9 mi) nearer than the Challenger Deep (6,366.4311 km (3,955.9 mi) to the Earth's center). In this ranking, several other Arctic as well as Antarctic depths such as Molloy Deep, seabed at North Pole, Factorian Deep and Meteor Deep in Southern Ocean exceed Challenger Deep. However, by depth below sea level, Litke Deep is not the deepest point in the Arctic Ocean. Surveys The Litke Deep was located in 1955 by the Russian icebreaker Fyodor Litke expedition. It is named after Russian explorer Fyodor Petrovich Litke. Descents No crewed or unmanned descents have been undertaken to Litke Deep as of 2024. See also List of oceanic trenches References External links Sketch of the area Russian language map of the area

Arctic_Ocean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing world ocean. The Arctic Ocean includes the North Pole region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere and extends south to about 60°N. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by Eurasia and North America, and the borders follow topographic features: the Bering Strait on the Pacific side and the Greenland Scotland Ridge on the Atlantic side. It is mostly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter. The Arctic Ocean's surface temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major oceans, due to low evaporation, heavy fresh water inflow from rivers and streams, and limited connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic waters with higher salinities. The summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) uses satellite data to provide a daily record of Arctic sea ice cover and the rate of melting compared to an average period and specific past years, showing a continuous decline in sea ice extent. In September 2012, the Arctic ice extent reached a new record minimum. Compared to the average extent (1979–2000), the sea ice had diminished by 49%. History North America Human habitation in the North American polar region goes back at least 17,000–50,000 years, during the Wisconsin glaciation. At this time, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to northwestern North America (Alaska), leading to the Settlement of the Americas. Early Paleo-Eskimo groups included the Pre-Dorset (c. 3200–850 BC); the Saqqaq culture of Greenland (2500–800 BC); the Independence I and Independence II cultures of northeastern Canada and Greenland (c. 2400–1800 BC and c. 800–1 BC); and the Groswater of Labrador and Nunavik. The Dorset culture spread across Arctic North America between 500 BC and AD 1500. The Dorset were the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture in the Arctic before the migration east from present-day Alaska of the Thule people, ancestors of the modern Inuit. The Thule Tradition lasted from about 200 BC to AD 1600, arising around the Bering Strait and later encompassing almost the entire Arctic region of North America. The Thule people were the ancestors of the Inuit, who now live in Alaska, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik (northern Quebec), Labrador and Greenland. Europe For much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. Pytheas of Massilia recorded an account of a journey northward in 325 BC, to a land he called "Eschate Thule", where the Sun only set for three hours each day and the water was replaced by a congealed substance "on which one can neither walk nor sail". He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as "growlers" or "bergy bits"; his "Thule" was probably Norway, though the Faroe Islands or Shetland have also been suggested. Early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land (as in Johannes Ruysch's map of 1507, or Gerardus Mercator's map of 1595) or water (as with Martin Waldseemüller's world map of 1507). The fervent desire of European merchants for a northern passage, the Northern Sea Route or the Northwest Passage, to "Cathay" (China) caused water to win out, and by 1723 mapmakers such as Johann Homann featured an extensive "Oceanus Septentrionalis" at the northern edge of their charts. The few expeditions to penetrate much beyond the Arctic Circle in that era added only small islands, such as Novaya Zemlya (11th century) and Spitzbergen (1596), though, since these were often surrounded by pack-ice, their northern limits were not so clear. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank, with only fragments of known coastline sketched in. 19th century This lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an "Open Polar Sea" was persistent. John Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane and Isaac Israel Hayes both claimed to have seen part of this elusive body of water. Even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea (1883). Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the pole reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick and persists year-round. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a nautical crossing of the Arctic Ocean, in the Fram Expedition from 1893 to 1896. 20th century The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the north pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus, and the first surface nautical transit occurred in 1977 by the icebreaker NS Arktika. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean. Scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested: the Allied commitment to resupply the Soviet Union via its northern ports was opposed by German naval and air forces. Since 1954 commercial airlines have flown over the Arctic Ocean (see Polar route). Geography Size The Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2 (5,427,000 sq mi), almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km (28,200 mi) long. It is the only ocean smaller than Russia, which has a land area of 16,377,742 km2 (6,323,482 sq mi). Surrounding land and exclusive economic zones The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia (Russia and Norway), North America (Canada and the U.S. state of Alaska), Greenland, and Iceland. Note: Some parts of the areas listed in the table are located in the Atlantic Ocean. Other consists of Gulfs, Straits, Channels and other parts without specific names and excludes Exclusive Economic Zones. Subareas and connections The Arctic Ocean is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea and Labrador Sea. (The Iceland Sea is sometimes considered part of the Greenland Sea, and sometimes separate.) The largest seas in the Arctic Ocean: Different authorities put various marginal seas in either the Arctic Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean, including: Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, the Norwegian Sea, and Hudson Strait. Islands The main islands and archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean are, from the prime meridian west: Jan Mayen (Norway) Iceland Greenland Arctic Archipelago (Canada, includes the Queen Elizabeth Islands and Baffin Island) Wrangel Island (Russia) New Siberian Islands (Russia) Severnaya Zemlya (Russia) Novaya Zemlya (Russia, includes Severny Island and Yuzhny Island) Franz Josef Land (Russia) Svalbard (Norway, including Bear Island) Ports There are several ports and harbours on the Arctic Ocean. Alaska Utqiaġvik (Barrow) Prudhoe Bay Canada Manitoba: Churchill (Port of Churchill) Nunavut: Nanisivik (Nanisivik Naval Facility) Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik in the Northwest Territories Greenland: Nuuk (Nuuk Port and Harbour) Norway Mainland: Kirkenes and Vardø Svalbard: Longyearbyen Iceland Akureyri Russia Barents Sea: Murmansk White Sea: Arkhangelsk Kara Sea: Labytnangi, Salekhard, Dudinka, Igarka and Dikson Laptev Sea: Tiksi East Siberian Sea: Pevek Arctic shelves The ocean's Arctic shelf comprises a number of continental shelves, including the Canadian Arctic shelf, underlying the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and the Russian continental shelf, which is sometimes called the "Arctic Shelf" because it is larger. The Russian continental shelf consists of three separate, smaller shelves: the Barents Shelf, Chukchi Sea Shelf and Siberian Shelf. Of these three, the Siberian Shelf is the largest such shelf in the world; it holds large oil and gas reserves. The Chukchi shelf forms the border between Russian and the United States as stated in the USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement. The whole area is subject to international territorial claims. The Chukchi Plateau extends from the Chukchi Sea Shelf. Underwater features An underwater ridge, the Lomonosov Ridge, divides the deep sea North Polar Basin into two oceanic basins: the Eurasian Basin, which is 4,000–4,500 m (13,100–14,800 ft) deep, and the Amerasian Basin (sometimes called the North American or Hyperborean Basin), which is about 4,000 m (13,000 ft) deep. The bathymetry of the ocean bottom is marked by fault block ridges, abyssal plains, ocean deeps, and basins. The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is 1,038 m (3,406 ft). The deepest point is Molloy Hole in the Fram Strait, at about 5,550 m (18,210 ft). The two major basins are further subdivided by ridges into the Canada Basin (between Beaufort Shelf of North America and the Alpha Ridge), Makarov Basin (between the Alpha and Lomonosov Ridges), Amundsen Basin (between Lomonosov and Gakkel ridges), and Nansen Basin (between the Gakkel Ridge and the continental shelf that includes the Franz Josef Land). Geology The crystalline basement rocks of mountains around the Arctic Ocean were recrystallized or formed during the Ellesmerian orogeny, the regional phase of the larger Caledonian orogeny in the Paleozoic Era. Regional subsidence in the Jurassic and Triassic periods led to significant sediment deposition, creating many of the reservoirs for current day oil and gas deposits. During the Cretaceous period, the Canadian Basin opened, and tectonic activity due to the assembly of Alaska caused hydrocarbons to migrate toward what is now Prudhoe Bay. At the same time, sediments shed off the rising Canadian Rockies built out the large Mackenzie Delta. The rifting apart of the supercontinent Pangea, beginning in the Triassic period, opened the early Atlantic Ocean. Rifting then extended northward, opening the Arctic Ocean as mafic oceanic crust material erupted out of a branch of Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Amerasia Basin may have opened first, with the Chukchi Borderland moved along to the northeast by transform faults. Additional spreading helped to create the "triple-junction" of the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge in the Late Cretaceous epoch. Throughout the Cenozoic Era, the subduction of the Pacific plate, the collision of India with Eurasia, and the continued opening of the North Atlantic created new hydrocarbon traps. The seafloor began spreading from the Gakkel Ridge in the Paleocene Epoch and the Eocene Epoch, causing the Lomonosov Ridge to move farther from land and subside. Because of sea ice and remote conditions, the geology of the Arctic Ocean is still poorly explored. The Arctic Coring Expedition drilling shed some light on the Lomonosov Ridge, which appears to be continental crust separated from the Barents-Kara Shelf in the Paleocene and then starved of sediment. It may contain up to 10 billion barrels of oil. The Gakkel Ridge rift is also poorly understand and may extend into the Laptev Sea. Oceanography Water flow In large parts of the Arctic Ocean, the top layer (about 50 m [160 ft]) is of lower salinity and lower temperature than the rest. It remains relatively stable because the salinity effect on density is bigger than the temperature effect. It is fed by the freshwater input of the big Siberian and Canadian rivers (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Mackenzie), the water of which quasi floats on the saltier, denser, deeper ocean water. Between this lower salinity layer and the bulk of the ocean lies the so-called halocline, in which both salinity and temperature rise with increasing depth. Because of its relative isolation from other oceans, the Arctic Ocean has a uniquely complex system of water flow. It resembles some hydrological features of the Mediterranean Sea, referring to its deep waters having only limited communication through the Fram Strait with the Atlantic Basin, "where the circulation is dominated by thermohaline forcing". The Arctic Ocean has a total volume of 18.07 × 106 km3, equal to about 1.3% of the World Ocean. Mean surface circulation is predominantly cyclonic on the Eurasian side and anticyclonic in the Canadian Basin. Water enters from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and can be divided into three unique water masses. The deepest water mass is called Arctic Bottom Water and begins around 900 m (3,000 ft) depth. It is composed of the densest water in the World Ocean and has two main sources: Arctic shelf water and Greenland Sea Deep Water. Water in the shelf region that begins as inflow from the Pacific passes through the narrow Bering Strait at an average rate of 0.8 Sverdrups and reaches the Chukchi Sea. During the winter, cold Alaskan winds blow over the Chukchi Sea, freezing the surface water and pushing this newly formed ice out to the Pacific. The speed of the ice drift is roughly 1–4 cm/s. This process leaves dense, salty waters in the sea that sink over the continental shelf into the western Arctic Ocean and create a halocline. This water is met by Greenland Sea Deep Water, which forms during the passage of winter storms. As temperatures cool dramatically in the winter, ice forms, and intense vertical convection allows the water to become dense enough to sink below the warm saline water below. Arctic Bottom Water is critically important because of its outflow, which contributes to the formation of Atlantic Deep Water. The overturning of this water plays a key role in global circulation and the moderation of climate. In the depth range of 150–900 m (490–2,950 ft) is a water mass referred to as Atlantic Water. Inflow from the North Atlantic Current enters through the Fram Strait, cooling and sinking to form the deepest layer of the halocline, where it circles the Arctic Basin counter-clockwise. This is the highest volumetric inflow to the Arctic Ocean, equalling about 10 times that of the Pacific inflow, and it creates the Arctic Ocean Boundary Current. It flows slowly, at about 0.02 m/s. Atlantic Water has the same salinity as Arctic Bottom Water but is much warmer (up to 3 °C [37 °F]). In fact, this water mass is actually warmer than the surface water and remains submerged only due to the role of salinity in density. When water reaches the basin, it is pushed by strong winds into a large circular current called the Beaufort Gyre. Water in the Beaufort Gyre is far less saline than that of the Chukchi Sea due to inflow from large Canadian and Siberian rivers. The final defined water mass in the Arctic Ocean is called Arctic Surface Water and is found in the depth range of 150–200 m (490–660 ft). The most important feature of this water mass is a section referred to as the sub-surface layer. It is a product of Atlantic water that enters through canyons and is subjected to intense mixing on the Siberian Shelf. As it is entrained, it cools and acts a heat shield for the surface layer on account of weak mixing between layers. However, over the past couple of decades a combination of the warming and the shoaling of Atlantic water are leading to the increasing influence of Atlantic water heat in melting sea ice in the eastern Arctic. The most recent estimates, for 2016–2018, indicate the oceanic heat flux to the surface has now overtaken the atmospheric flux in the eastern Eurasian Basin. Over the same period the weakening halocline stratification has coincided with increasing upper ocean currents thought to be associated with declining sea ice, indicate increasing mixing in this region. In contrast direct measurements of mixing in the western Arctic indicate the Atlantic water heat remains isolated at intermediate depths even under the 'perfect storm' conditions of the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012. Waters originating in the Pacific and Atlantic both exit through the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard Island, which is about 2,700 m (8,900 ft) deep and 350 km (220 mi) wide. This outflow is about 9 Sv. The width of the Fram Strait is what allows for both inflow and outflow on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean. Because of this, it is influenced by the Coriolis force, which concentrates outflow to the East Greenland Current on the western side and inflow to the Norwegian Current on the eastern side. Pacific water also exits along the west coast of Greenland and the Hudson Strait (1–2 Sv), providing nutrients to the Canadian Archipelago. As noted, the process of ice formation and movement is a key driver in Arctic Ocean circulation and the formation of water masses. With this dependence, the Arctic Ocean experiences variations due to seasonal changes in sea ice cover. Sea ice movement is the result of wind forcing, which is related to a number of meteorological conditions that the Arctic experiences throughout the year. For example, the Beaufort High—an extension of the Siberian High system—is a pressure system that drives the anticyclonic motion of the Beaufort Gyre. During the summer, this area of high pressure is pushed out closer to its Siberian and Canadian sides. In addition, there is a sea level pressure (SLP) ridge over Greenland that drives strong northerly winds through the Fram Strait, facilitating ice export. In the summer, the SLP contrast is smaller, producing weaker winds. A final example of seasonal pressure system movement is the low pressure system that exists over the Nordic and Barents Seas. It is an extension of the Icelandic Low, which creates cyclonic ocean circulation in this area. The low shifts to centre over the North Pole in the summer. These variations in the Arctic all contribute to ice drift reaching its weakest point during the summer months. There is also evidence that the drift is associated with the phase of the Arctic Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Sea ice Much of the Arctic Ocean is covered by sea ice that varies in extent and thickness seasonally. The mean extent of the Arctic sea ice has been continuously decreasing in the last decades, declining at a rate of currently 12.85% per decade since 1980 from the average winter value of 15,600,000 km2 (6,023,200 sq mi). The seasonal variations are about 7,000,000 km2 (2,702,700 sq mi), with the maximum in April and minimum in September. The sea ice is affected by wind and ocean currents, which can move and rotate very large areas of ice. Zones of compression also arise, where the ice piles up to form pack ice. Icebergs occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island, and icebergs are formed from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada. Icebergs are not sea ice but may become embedded in the pack ice. Icebergs pose a hazard to ships, of which the Titanic is one of the most famous. The ocean is virtually icelocked from October to June, and the superstructure of ships are subject to icing from October to May. Before the advent of modern icebreakers, ships sailing the Arctic Ocean risked being trapped or crushed by sea ice (although the Baychimo drifted through the Arctic Ocean untended for decades despite these hazards). Climate The Arctic Ocean is contained in a polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges. Winters are characterized by the polar night, extreme cold, frequent low-level temperature inversions, and stable weather conditions. Cyclones are only common on the Atlantic side. Summers are characterized by continuous daylight (midnight sun), and air temperatures can rise slightly above 0 °C (32 °F). Cyclones are more frequent in summer and may bring rain or snow. It is cloudy year-round, with mean cloud cover ranging from 60% in winter to over 80% in summer. The temperature of the surface water of the Arctic Ocean is fairly constant at approximately −1.8 °C (28.8 °F), near the freezing point of seawater. The density of sea water, in contrast to fresh water, increases as it nears the freezing point and thus it tends to sink. It is generally necessary that the upper 100–150 m (330–490 ft) of ocean water cools to the freezing point for sea ice to form. In the winter, the relatively warm ocean water exerts a moderating influence, even when covered by ice. This is one reason why the Arctic does not experience the extreme temperatures seen on the Antarctic continent. There is considerable seasonal variation in how much pack ice of the Arctic ice pack covers the Arctic Ocean. Much of the Arctic ice pack is also covered in snow for about 10 months of the year. The maximum snow cover is in March or April—about 20–50 cm (7.9–19.7 in) over the frozen ocean. The climate of the Arctic region has varied significantly during the Earth's history. During the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago, when the global climate underwent a warming of approximately 5–8 °C (9–14 °F), the region reached an average annual temperature of 10–20 °C (50–68 °F). The surface waters of the northernmost Arctic Ocean warmed, seasonally at least, enough to support tropical lifeforms (the dinoflagellates Apectodinium augustum) requiring surface temperatures of over 22 °C (72 °F). Currently, the Arctic region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Biology Due to the pronounced seasonality of 2–6 months of midnight sun and polar night in the Arctic Ocean, the primary production of photosynthesizing organisms such as ice algae and phytoplankton is limited to the spring and summer months (March/April to September). Important consumers of primary producers in the central Arctic Ocean and the adjacent shelf seas include zooplankton, especially copepods (Calanus finmarchicus, Calanus glacialis, and Calanus hyperboreus) and euphausiids, as well as ice-associated fauna (e.g., amphipods). These primary consumers form an important link between the primary producers and higher trophic levels. The composition of higher trophic levels in the Arctic Ocean varies with region (Atlantic side vs. Pacific side) and with the sea-ice cover. Secondary consumers in the Barents Sea, an Atlantic-influenced Arctic shelf sea, are mainly sub-Arctic species including herring, young cod, and capelin. In ice-covered regions of the central Arctic Ocean, polar cod is a central predator of primary consumers. The apex predators in the Arctic Ocean—marine mammals such as seals, whales, and polar bears—prey upon fish. Endangered marine species in the Arctic Ocean include walruses and whales. The area has a fragile ecosystem, and it is especially exposed to climate change, because it warms faster than the rest of the world. Lion's mane jellyfish are abundant in the waters of the Arctic, and the banded gunnel is the only species of gunnel that lives in the ocean. Natural resources Petroleum and natural gas fields, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, sand and gravel aggregates, fish, seals and whales can all be found in abundance in the region. The political dead zone near the centre of the sea is also the focus of a mounting dispute between the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark. It is significant for the global energy market because it may hold 25% or more of the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources. Environmental concerns Arctic ice melting The Arctic ice pack is thinning, and a seasonal hole in the ozone layer frequently occurs. Reduction of the area of Arctic sea ice reduces the planet's average albedo, possibly resulting in global warming in a positive feedback mechanism. Research shows that the Arctic may become ice-free in the summer for the first time in human history by 2040. Estimates vary for when the last time the Arctic was ice-free: 65 million years ago when fossils indicate that plants existed there to as recently as 5,500 years ago; ice and ocean cores going back 8,000 years to the last warm period or 125,000 during the last intraglacial period. Warming temperatures in the Arctic may cause large amounts of fresh melt-water to enter the north Atlantic, possibly disrupting global ocean current patterns. Potentially severe changes in the Earth's climate might then ensue. As the extent of sea ice diminishes and sea level rises, the effect of storms such as the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 on open water increases, as does possible salt-water damage to vegetation on shore at locations such as the Mackenzie Delta as stronger storm surges become more likely. Global warming has increased encounters between polar bears and humans. Reduced sea ice due to melting is causing polar bears to search for new sources of food. Beginning in December 2018 and coming to an apex in February 2019, a mass invasion of polar bears into the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya caused local authorities to declare a state of emergency. Dozens of polar bears were seen entering homes, public buildings and inhabited areas. Clathrate breakdown Sea ice, and the cold conditions it sustains, serves to stabilize methane deposits on and near the shoreline, preventing the clathrate breaking down and outgassing methane into the atmosphere, causing further warming. Melting of this ice may release large quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, causing further warming in a strong positive feedback cycle and marine genera and species to become extinct. Other concerns Other environmental concerns relate to the radioactive contamination of the Arctic Ocean from, for example, Russian radioactive waste dump sites in the Kara Sea, Cold War nuclear test sites such as Novaya Zemlya, Camp Century's contaminants in Greenland, and radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. On 16 July 2015, five nations (United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark/Greenland) signed a declaration committing to keep their fishing vessels out of a 1.1 million square mile zone in the central Arctic Ocean near the North Pole. The agreement calls for those nations to refrain from fishing there until there is better scientific knowledge about the marine resources and until a regulatory system is in place to protect those resources. See also References Further reading Neatby, Leslie H., Discovery in Russian and Siberian Waters (1973), ISBN 0-8214-0124-6. Ray, L., and B. Bacon, eds., The Arctic Ocean (1982), ISBN 0-333-31017-9. Thorén, Ragnar V.A., Picture Atlas of the Arctic (1969), ISBN 0-8214-0124-6. External links Arctic Council Arctic Environmental Atlas Interactive map Arctic Great Rivers Observatory (ArcticGRO) Arctic Ocean. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Daily Arctic Ocean Rawinsonde Data from Soviet Drifting Ice Stations (1954–1990) Archived 19 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine at NSIDC NOAA North Pole Web Cam Images from Web Cams deployed in spring on an ice floe NOAA Near-realtime North Pole Weather Data Data from instruments deployed on an ice floe International Polar Foundation "Daily report of Arctic ice cover based on satellite data". nsidc.org. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Climate_change_in_the_Arctic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Arctic

Due to climate change in the Arctic, this polar region is expected to become "profoundly different" by 2050.: 2321  The speed of change is "among the highest in the world",: 2321  with the rate of warming being 3-4 times faster than the global average. This warming has already resulted in the profound Arctic sea ice decline, the accelerating melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the thawing of the permafrost landscape.: 2321  These ongoing transformations are expected to be irreversible for centuries or even millennia.: 2321  Natural life in the Arctic is affected greatly. As the tundra warms, its soil becomes more hospitable to earthworms and larger plants, and the boreal forests spread to the north - yet this also makes the landscape more prone to wildfires, which take longer to recover from than in the other regions. Beavers also take advantage of this warming to colonize the Arctic rivers, and their dams contributing to methane emissions due to the increase in stagnant waters. The Arctic Ocean has experienced a large increase in the marine primary production as warmer waters and less shade from sea ice benefit phytoplankton.: 2326  At the same time, it is already less alkaline than the rest of the global ocean, so ocean acidification caused by the increasing CO2 concentrations is more severe, threatening some forms of zooplankton such as pteropods.: 2328  The Arctic Ocean is expected to see its first ice-free events in the near future - most likely before 2050, and potentially in the late 2020s or early 2030s. This would have no precedent in the last 700,000 years. Some sea ice regrows every Arctic winter, but such events are expected to occur more and more frequently as the warming increases. This has great implications for the fauna species which are dependent on sea ice, such as polar bears. For humans, trade routes across the ocean will become more convenient. Yet, multiple countries have infrastructure in the Arctic which is worth billions of dollars, and it is threatened with collapse as the underlying permafrost thaws. The Arctic's indigenous people have a long relationship with its icy conditions, and face the loss of their cultural heritage. Further, there are numerous implications which go beyond the Arctic region. Sea ice loss not only enhances warming in the Arctic but also adds to global temperature increase through the ice-albedo feedback. Permafrost thaw results in emissions of CO2 and methane that are comparable to those of major countries. Greenland melting is a significant contributor to global sea level rise. If the warming exceeds - or thereabouts, there is a significant risk of the entire ice sheet being lost over an estimated 10,000 years, adding up to global sea levels. Warming in the Arctic may affect the stability of the jet stream, and thus the extreme weather events in midlatitude regions, but there is only "low confidence" in that hypothesis. Impacts on the physical environment Warming The period of 1995–2005 was the warmest decade in the Arctic since at least the 17th century, with temperatures 2 °C (3.6 °F) above the 1951–1990 average. Alaska and western Canada's temperature rose by 3 to 4 °C (5.40 to 7.20 °F) during that period. 2013 research has shown that temperatures in the region haven't been as high as they currently are since at least 44,000 years ago and perhaps as long as 120,000 years ago. Since 2013, Arctic annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) has been at least 1 °C (1.8 °F) warmer than the 1981-2010 mean. In 2016, there were extreme anomalies from January to February with the temperature in the Arctic being estimated to be between 4–5.8 °C (7.2–10.4 °F) more than it was between 1981 and 2010. In 2020, mean SAT was 1.9 °C (3.4 °F) warmer than the 1981–2010 average. On 20 June 2020, for the first time, a temperature measurement was made inside the Arctic Circle of 38 °C, more than 100 °F. This kind of weather was expected in the region only by 2100. In March, April and May the average temperature in the Arctic was 10 °C (18.0 °F) higher than normal. This heat wave, without human – induced warming, could happen only one time in 80,000 years, according to an attribution study published in July 2020. It is the strongest link of a weather event to anthropogenic climate change that had been ever found, for now. Arctic amplification Precipitation An observed impact of climate change is aa strong increase in the number of lightnings in the Arctic. Lightnings increase the risk for wildfires. Some research suggests that globally, a warming greater than 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) over the preindustrial level could change the type of precipitation in the Arctic from snow to rain in summer and autumn. Cryosphere loss Sea ice Greenland ice sheet Biological environment Impacts on Arctic flora Climate change is expected to have a strong effect on the Arctic's flora, some of which is already being seen. NASA and NOAA have continuously monitored Arctic vegetation with satellite instruments such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced very-high-resolution radiometer (AVHRR). Their data allows scientists to calculate so-called "Arctic greening" and "Arctic browning". From 1985 to 2016, greening has occurred in 37.3% of all sites sampled in the tundra, whereas browning was observed only in 4.7% of the sites - typically the ones that were still experiencing cooling and drying, as opposed to warming and wettening for the rest. This expansion of vegetation in the Arctic is not equivalent across types of vegetation. A major trend has been from shrub-type plants taking over areas previously dominated by moss and lichens. This change contributes to the consideration that the tundra biome is currently experiencing the most rapid change of any terrestrial biomes on the planet. The direct impact on mosses and lichens is unclear as there exist very few studies at species level, but climate change is more likely to cause increased fluctuation and more frequent extreme events. While shrubs may increase in range and biomass, warming may also cause a decline in cushion plants such as moss campion, and since cushion plants act as facilitator species across trophic levels and fill important ecological niches in several environments, this could cause cascading effects in these ecosystems that could severely affect the way in which they function and are structured. The expansion of these shrubs can also have strong effects on other important ecological dynamics, such as the albedo effect. These shrubs change the winter surface of the tundra from undisturbed, uniform snow to mixed surface with protruding branches disrupting the snow cover, this type of snow cover has a lower albedo effect, with reductions of up to 55%, which contributes to a positive feedback loop on regional and global climate warming. This reduction of the albedo effect means that more radiation is absorbed by plants, and thus, surface temperatures increase, which could disrupt current surface-atmosphere energy exchanges and affect thermal regimes of permafrost. Carbon cycling is also being affected by these changes in vegetation, as parts of the tundra increase their shrub cover, they behave more like boreal forests in terms of carbon cycling. This is speeding up the carbon cycle, as warmer temperatures lead to increased permafrost thawing and carbon release, but also carbon capturing from plants that have increased growth. It is not certain whether this balance will go in one direction or the other, but studies have found that it is more likely that this will eventually lead to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. However, boreal forests, particularly those in North America, showed a different response to warming. Many boreal forests greened, but the trend was not as strong as it was for tundra of the circumpolar Arctic, mostly characterized by shrub expansion and increased growth. In North America, some boreal forests actually experienced browning over the study period. Droughts, increased forest fire activity, animal behavior, industrial pollution, and a number of other factors may have contributed to browning. Impacts on terrestrial fauna Arctic warming negatively affects the foraging and breeding ecology of native Arctic mammals, such as Arctic foxes or Arctic reindeer. In July 2019, 200 Svalbard reindeer were found starved to death apparently due to low precipitation related to climate change. This was only one episode in the long-term decline of the species.: 2327  United States Geological Survey research suggests that the shrinkage of Arctic sea ice would eventually extirpate polar bears from Alaska, but leave some of their habitat in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and areas off the northern Greenland coast. As the pure Arctic climate is gradually replaced by the subarctic climate, animals adapted to those conditions spread to the north.: 2325  For instance, beavers have been actively colonizing Arctic regions, and as they create dams, they flood areas which used to be permafrost, contributing to its thaw and methane emissions from it. These colonizing species can outright replace native species, and they may also interbreed with their southern relations, like in the case of the Grizzly–polar bear hybrid. This usually has the effect of reducing the genetic diversity of the genus. Infectious diseases, such as brucellosis or phocine distemper virus, may spread to populations previously separated by the cold, or, in case of the marine mammals, the sea ice. Marine ecosystems The reduction of sea ice has brought more sunlight to the phytoplankton and increased the annual marine primary production in the Arctic by over 30% between 1998 and 2020.: 2327  As the result, the Arctic Ocean became a stronger carbon sink over this period; yet, it still accounts for only 5% to 14% of the total ocean carbon sink, although it is expected to play a larger role in the future. By 2100, phytoplankton biomass in the Arctic Ocean is generally expected to increase by ~20% relative to 2000 under the low-emission scenario, and by 30-40% under the high-emission scenario.: 2329  Atlantic cod have been able to move deeper into the Arctic due to the warming waters, while the Polar cod and local marine mammals have been losing habitat.: 2327  Many copepod species appear to be declining, which is also likely to reduce the numbers of fish which prey on them, such as walleye pollock or the arrowtooth flounder.: 2327  This also affects Arctic shorebirds. For instance, around 9000 puffins and other shorebirds in Alaska died of starvation in 2016, because too many fish have moved to the north. While the shorebirds also appear to nest more successfully due to the observed warming, this benefit may be more than offset by phenological mismatch between shorebirds' and other species' life cycles. Marine mammals such as ringed seals and walruses are also being negatively affected by the warming. Greenhouse gas emissions from the Arctic Permafrost thaw Permafrost is an important component of hydrological systems and ecosystems within the Arctic landscape. In the Northern Hemisphere the terrestrial permafrost domain comprises around 18 million km2. Within this permafrost region, the total soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is estimated to be 1,460-1,600 Pg (where 1 Pg = 1 billion tons), which constitutes double the amount of carbon currently contained in the atmosphere. Black carbon Black carbon deposits (from the combustion of heavy fuel oil (HFO) of Arctic shipping) absorb solar radiation in the atmosphere and strongly reduce the albedo when deposited on snow and ice, thus accelerating the effect of the melting of snow and sea ice. A 2013 study quantified that gas flaring at petroleum extraction sites contributed over 40% of the black carbon deposited in the Arctic. 2019 research attributed the majority (56%) of Arctic surface black carbon to emissions from Russia, followed by European emissions, and Asia also being a large source. In 2015, research suggested that reducing black carbon emissions and short-lived greenhouse gases by roughly 60 percent by 2050 could cool the Arctic up to 0.2 °C. However, a 2019 study indicates that "Black carbon emissions will continuously rise due to increased shipping activities", specifically fishing vessels. The number of wildfires in the Arctic Circle has increased. In 2020, Arctic wildfire CO2 emissions broke a new record, peaking at 244 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted. This is due to the burning of peatlands, carbon-rich soils that originate from the accumulation of waterlogged plants which are mostly found at Arctic latitudes. These peatlands are becoming more likely to burn as temperatures increase, but their own burning and releasing of CO2 contributes to their own likelihood of burning in a positive feedback loop.The smoke from wildfires defined as "brown carbon" also increases arctic warming, with its warming effect is around 30% that of black carbon. As wildfires increases with warming this creates a positive feedback loop. Methane clathrate deposits Effects on other parts of the world On ocean circulation On mid-latitude weather Impacts on people Territorial claims Growing evidence that global warming is shrinking polar ice has added to the urgency of several nations' Arctic territorial claims in hopes of establishing resource development and new shipping lanes, in addition to protecting sovereign rights. As ice sea coverage decreases more and more, year on year, Arctic countries (Russia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the United States and Denmark representing Greenland) are making moves on the geopolitical stage to ensure access to potential new shipping lanes, oil and gas reserves, leading to overlapping claims across the region. However, there is only one single land border dispute in the Arctic, with all others relating to the sea, that is Hans Island. This small uninhabited island lies in the Nares strait, between Canada's Ellesmere Island and the northern coast of Greenland. Its status comes from its geographical position, right between the equidistant boundaries determined in a 1973 treaty between Canada and Denmark. Even though both countries have acknowledged the possibility of splitting the island, no agreement on the island has been reached, with both nations still claiming it for themselves. There is more activity in terms of maritime boundaries between countries, where overlapping claims for internal waters, territorial seas and particularly Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) can cause frictions between nations. Currently, official maritime borders have an unclaimed triangle of international waters lying between them, that is at the centerpoint of international disputes. This unclaimed land can be obtainable by submitting a claim to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, these claims can be based on geological evidence that continental shelves extend beyond their current maritime borders and into international waters. Some overlapping claims are still pending resolution by international bodies, such as a large portion containing the north pole that is both claimed by Denmark and Russia, with some parts of it also contested by Canada. Another example is that of the Northwest Passage, globally recognized as international waters, but technically in Canadian waters. This has led to Canada wanting to limit the number of ships that can go through for environmental reasons but the United States disputes that they have the authority to do so, favouring unlimited passage of vessels. Navigation The Transpolar Sea Route is a future Arctic shipping lane running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the center of the Arctic Ocean. The route is also sometimes called Trans-Arctic Route. In contrast to the Northeast Passage (including the Northern Sea Route) and the North-West Passage it largely avoids the territorial waters of Arctic states and lies in international high seas. Governments and private industry have shown a growing interest in the Arctic. Major new shipping lanes are opening up: the northern sea route had 34 passages in 2011 while the Northwest Passage had 22 traverses, more than any time in history. Shipping companies may benefit from the shortened distance of these northern routes. Access to natural resources will increase, including valuable minerals and offshore oil and gas. Finding and controlling these resources will be difficult with the continually moving ice. Tourism may also increase as less sea ice will improve safety and accessibility to the Arctic. The melting of Arctic ice caps is likely to increase traffic in and the commercial viability of the Northern Sea Route. One study, for instance, projects, "remarkable shifts in trade flows between Asia and Europe, diversion of trade within Europe, heavy shipping traffic in the Arctic and a substantial drop in Suez traffic. Projected shifts in trade also imply substantial pressure on an already threatened Arctic ecosystem." Infrastructure Toxic pollution Impacts on indigenous peoples As climate change speeds up, it is having more and more of a direct impact on societies around the world. This is particularly true of people that live in the Arctic, where increases in temperature are occurring at faster rates than at other latitudes in the world, and where traditional ways of living, deeply connected with the natural arctic environment are at particular risk of environmental disruption caused by these changes. The warming of the atmosphere and ecological changes that come alongside it presents challenges to local communities such as the Inuit. Hunting, which is a major way of survival for some small communities, will be changed with increasing temperatures. The reduction of sea ice will cause certain species populations to decline or even become extinct. Inuit communities are deeply reliant on seal hunting, which is dependent on sea ice flats, where seals are hunted. Unsuspected changes in river and snow conditions will cause herds of animals, including reindeer, to change migration patterns, calving grounds, and forage availability. In good years, some communities are fully employed by the commercial harvest of certain animals. The harvest of different animals fluctuates each year and with the rise of temperatures it is likely to continue changing and creating issues for Inuit hunters, as unpredictability and disruption of ecological cycles further complicate life in these communities, which already face significant problems, such as Inuit communities being the poorest and most unemployed of North America. Other forms of transportation in the Arctic have seen negative impacts from the current warming, with some transportation routes and pipelines on land being disrupted by the melting of ice. Many Arctic communities rely on frozen roadways to transport supplies and travel from area to area. The changing landscape and unpredictability of weather is creating new challenges in the Arctic. Researchers have documented historical and current trails created by the Inuit in the Pan Inuit Trails Atlas, finding that the change in sea ice formation and breakup has resulted in changes to the routes of trails created by the Inuit. Adaptation Research Individual countries within the Arctic zone, Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States (Alaska) conduct independent research through a variety of organizations and agencies, public and private, such as Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. Countries who do not have Arctic claims, but are close neighbors, conduct Arctic research as well, such as the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA). The United States's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) produces an Arctic Report Card annually, containing peer-reviewed information on recent observations of environmental conditions in the Arctic relative to historical records. International cooperative research between nations has also become increasingly important: Arctic climate change is summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its series of Assessment Reports and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. European Space Agency (ESA) launched CryoSat-2 on 8 April 2010. It provides satellite data on Arctic ice cover change rates. International Arctic Buoy Program: deploys and maintains buoys that provide real-time position, pressure, temperature, and interpolated ice velocity data International Arctic Research Center: Main participants are the United States and Japan. International Arctic Science Committee: non-governmental organization (NGO) with diverse membership, including 23 countries from 3 continents. 'Role of the Arctic Region', in conjunction with the International Polar Year, was the focus of the second international conference on Global Change Research, held in Nynäshamn, Sweden, October 2007. SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change): A research framework originally promoted by several US agencies; an international extension is ISAC (the International Study of Arctic Change). The 2021 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) report by an international team of more than 60 experts, scientists, and indigenous knowledge keepers from Arctic communities, was prepared from 2019 to 2021.: vii  It is a follow-up report of the 2017 assessment, "Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic" (SWIPA).: vii  The 2021 IPCC AR6 WG1 Technical Report confirmed that "[o]bserved and projected warming" were ""strongest in the Arctic".: 29  According to an 11 August 2022 article published in Nature, there have been numerous reports that the Arctic is warming from twice to three times as fast as the global average since 1979, but the co-authors cautioned that the recent report of the "four-fold Arctic warming ratio" was potentially an "extremely unlikely event". The annual mean Arctic Amplification (AA) index had "reached values exceeding four" from c. 2002 through 2022, according to a July 2022 article in Geophysical Research Letters.: 1  The 14 December 2021 16th Arctic Report Card produced by the United States's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and released annually, examined the "interconnected physical, ecological and human components" of the circumpolar Arctic. The report said that the 12 months between October 2020 and September 2021 were the "seventh warmest over Arctic land since the record began in 1900". The 2017 report said that the melting ice in the warming Arctic was unprecedented in the past 1500 years. NOAA's State of the Arctic Reports, starting in 2006, updates some of the records of the original 2004 and 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) reports by the intergovernmental Arctic Council and the non-governmental International Arctic Science Committee. A 2022 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report "Spreading Like Wildfire: The Rising Threat Of Extraordinary Landscape Fires" said that smoke from wildfires around the world created a positive feedback loop that is a contributing factor to Arctic melting. The 2020 Siberian heatwave was "associated with extensive burning in the Arctic Circle".: 36  Report authors said that this extreme heat event was the first to demonstrate that it would have been "almost impossible" without anthropogenic emissions and climate change.: 36 See also References Works cited IPCC (2021). Masson-Delmotte, V.; Zhai, P.; Pirani, A.; Connors, S. L.; et al. (eds.). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (PDF). Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press (In Press). Fox-Kemper, Baylor; Hewitt, Helene T.; Xiao, Cunde; Aðalgeirsdóttir, Guðfinna; et al. (2021). "Chapter 9: Ocean, cryosphere, and sea level change" (PDF). IPCC AR6 WG1 2021. IPCC AR5 WG1 (2013), Stocker, T.F.; et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group 1 (WG1) Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report (AR5), Cambridge University Press{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link). Climate Change 2013 Working Group 1 website. Further reading "Black Carbon and Methane". Arctic Council. 9 July 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2023. Hersher, Rebecca (11 August 2022). "The Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the whole planet, study finds". NPR. Retrieved 6 November 2023. External links Arctic Change website, in near-realtime Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis Smith, Duane (2007). "Climate Change In The Arctic: An Inuit Reality". UN Chronicle. The Arctic ice sheet, satellite map with daily updates. NOAA: Arctic Theme Page – A comprehensive resource focused on the Arctic Persistent warming trend and loss of sea ice are triggering extensive Arctic changes (Report). Arctic Report Card: Update for 2016. NOAA. Rapid and pronounced warming continues to drive the evolution of the Arctic environment (Report). Arctic Report Card: Update for 2021. NOAA. Killing the Arctic Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective (October 2020), by John McCannon

Angus_L._Macdonald_Bridge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_L._Macdonald_Bridge

The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is a suspension bridge crossing Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia, Canada; it opened on April 2, 1955. The bridge is one of two suspension bridges linking the Halifax Peninsula to Dartmouth in the Halifax Regional Municipality. It is named after the former premier of Nova Scotia, Angus L. Macdonald, who had died in 1954 and had been instrumental in having the bridge built. The bridge was designed by Philip Louis Pratley, one of Canada's foremost long-span bridge designers who had also been responsible for the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver. The bridges have a similar design, which is most notable in the towers. The contractor was Dominion Bridge Company Ltd. The bridge regularly experiences traffic congestion during rush hours as a result of the structure's proximity to the downtown cores of Halifax and Dartmouth, as well as its narrow width. Large commercial vehicles are not permitted to cross and must use the wider MacKay Bridge to the northwest. Public transit buses are allowed to cross and the bridge links several Halifax Transit routes. In 2014/15 the average number of vehicle crossings per month was 1,183,095. As of January 3, 2022 the toll charge to cross for regular passenger vehicles is $1.25 cash or $1.00 with the MACPASS electronic toll system. The original toll, when the Macdonald opened in 1955, was 40 cents plus 5 cents per passenger. There was also a separate toll for trucks, cyclists, pedestrians, motorcycles and horses/rider. History Construction of the bridge took place between 1952 and 1955. Caissons were used for underwater work. Five workers died falling from catwalks during construction. The bridge opened on April 2, 1955, and originally cost $11.5 million. 1999 modernization A modernization project was undertaken in the late 1990s and completed in 1999 which saw the original two lanes and one sidewalk and utility corridor expanded to three lanes, with the centre lane being reversible to assist with traffic flow during peak periods. To reduce the weight of the roadway, asphalt and concrete were removed and special steel plating (an orthotropic deck) was used in its place. This deck is 35% lighter than the old one. New pedestrian and bicycle lanes were attached to the outside of the structure to replace the original sidewalks. External aesthetic lights were added during the modernisation project which saw the bridge's towers lit for the first time on a continuous basis every evening from sunset until midnight. Critics derided the effort as a waste of electricity, given Halifax Harbour's frequent foggy weather conditions. The lighting was estimated by the bridge authority to cost in excess of $50,000 a year in 1999. Safety barriers The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge has attracted media attention as the spot where well known environmental activist Tooker Gomberg is believed to have committed suicide on March 3, 2004. In June 2004 the Department of National Defence filed a lawsuit against the Bridge Commission alleging that snow, ice, bottles and other debris rained down on HMC Dockyard below, endangering staff. The DND first sought $527,000 in damages for its efforts to protect employees, an amount that was later increased to $1.04 million. The lawsuit claimed that the issue had been exacerbated when chain link fencing on the bridge had been removed during the 1999 modernization. In July 2007, as part of the settlement, barriers were installed along 22% of the pedestrian lane at the bridge's western end (Halifax abutment) to prevent suicide attempts and protect navy staff below. Initially, the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission was concerned that the structure was not capable of handling the additional weight of installing safety barriers along the entire span of the bridge. Subsequent computer modeling eliminated the previous concerns, and on May 13, 2009 the general manager and CEO of the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission, Steve Snider, announced that a tender for the long-called for extension of the barriers along the full length of the bridge would be issued in June 2009. By March 2010, the remaining sections of the safety barrier had been installed. The bridge now has safety barriers installed along 100% of its pedestrian walkways. 2015 "Big Lift" project Beginning in 2015 another major renovation of the bridge started which saw the temporary removal of the pedway and bike lanes. At a cost of $150 million, every piece of steel that makes up the suspended spans, except the towers and two main cables, were replaced; the non-suspended approach spans remained. New vertical cables were required due to the relocation of the stiffening trusses from above deck level to below deck level. Construction mostly occurred overnight with the bridge open to traffic during the day, but many full-weekend closures were necessary. The replacement portion of the project was completed in February 2017. After the Lion's Gate Bridge, this was only the second time that a suspension bridge had its suspended spans completely replaced while continuing to allow regular traffic flow during the daytime. Principal engineering work for the project was done by the same firm that managed the work on the Lion's Gate Bridge. During the Big Lift project Halifax Transit continued to run its regularly scheduled conventional bus service across the Macdonald bridge, except during times when the bridge was closed. During scheduled closures, Halifax Transit operated a shuttle service using the MacKay Bridge. Halifax Harbour Bridges also operated a free, 24-hour-a-day shuttle service during construction to accommodate the bridge's pedestrian and bicycle users. It operated on a load-and-go basis during the weekday morning and afternoon rush hours, and on a 30-minute schedule at all other times of the day and overnight. See also A. Murray MacKay Bridge – A newer suspension bridge crossing Halifax Harbour. Halifax Harbour Bridges List of bridges in Canada Notes Further reading Chapman, Harry (2005). Crossings: Fifty Years of the Angus L. MacDonald Bridge. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus Publishing. ISBN 1551095165. External links Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission information Angus L. Macdonald Bridge at Structurae Cherubini Group construction photos including deck fabrication and replacement

A._Murray_MacKay_Bridge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Murray_MacKay_Bridge

The A. Murray MacKay Bridge, known locally as "the new bridge", is a suspension bridge linking the Halifax Peninsula with Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and opened on July 10, 1970. It is one of two suspension bridges crossing Halifax Harbour. Its counterpart, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge, was completed in 1955. The bridge carries on average 52,000 vehicle crossings per day, and is part of Nova Scotia Highway 111. As of January 3, 2022, the toll charge to cross for regular passenger vehicles is $1.25 cash, or $1.00 with the Macpass electronic toll system. Larger vehicles have higher tolls proportional to the number of axles. The Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission is exploring the idea of moving entirely to electronic tolls to avoid handling tokens or cash. The A. Murray MacKay Bridge is the only harbour bridge that permits semi-trailers and large trucks. Pedestrians and bicycles are not permitted on the A. Murray MacKay Bridge; they may instead use dedicated lanes on the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge. History Planning The Macdonald Bridge, the older of the two suspension bridges spanning Halifax Harbour, opened in 1955. By the early 1960s, growing traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth prompted the government to hire Montreal consulting firm Pratley and Dorton to carry out a study on the construction of an additional bridge (or bridges). Their report, the Halifax Area Bridge Study, was submitted in 1963 and explored two possible sites for a new cross-harbour bridge. The provincial government and the Halifax-area municipalities could not reach agreement on which site was best, so the province asked the bridge commission to make a decision. The site at the Narrows was subsequently chosen. Africville Political controversy preceded construction of the MacKay Bridge when the city of Halifax expropriated residents from the black community of Africville near the Halifax abutment. Construction The first construction contract; for the bridge piers, abutments, and cable anchorages; was signed with Halifax contractor Robert McAlpine Ltd. in April 1967. A sod-turning ceremony, marking the beginning of construction, was carried out on 29 June 1967 by Nova Scotia premier Robert Stanfield. A contract for the bridge superstructure – including the two bridge towers, suspended spans, approach spans, and concrete decking on the approach spans – was awarded in August 1967 to the Canadian Bridge Division of DOSCO, a subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley Canada. The Adhesive Engineering Company, based in San Carlos, California, was awarded the contract to apply an epoxy asphalt surface to the bridge's orthotropic deck. Opening The bridge was formally inaugurated by premier George Isaac Smith, in the company of lieutenant governor Victor de Bedia Oland, on 10 July 1970 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that began at 2:30 pm at the Dartmouth toll station. The bridge opened to traffic later that afternoon. Speaking at the event, Premier Smith described the bridge as "another important milestone in the development of these historic communities". The bridge is named after Alexander Murray MacKay, chairman of the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission from 1951 to 1971 and past chief executive officer of MT&T. MacKay was instrumental in having both the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge and his namesake structure built during his tenure at the commission. Proposed renaming Following the death of former Nova Scotia premier Robert L. Stanfield in 2003, there was a motion made to rename the MacKay Bridge to honour Stanfield, but the Stanfield family did not want any current structures already named for persons to be changed for Stanfield's sake. In 2007, the Halifax International Airport was renamed Halifax - Robert L. Stanfield International Airport; several new schools and other institutional buildings are also under consideration for Stanfield's name. Financing A decision was made to finance the construction of the bridge with low-interest loans denominated in foreign currencies, saving money in the short term and allowing the tolls to be kept low. In 1969, the bridge commission issued a 10-year bond of 100 million Deutsche Marks in West Germany. In 1973, the bridge commission obtained a loan of C$12.2 million from a Swiss bank. However, the subsequent decline in the value of the Canadian dollar against the German Mark and the Swiss franc cancelled out the interest cost advantage and caused a massive increase in annual debt servicing costs. At its peak, the commission's debt amounted to nearly $125 million, nearly triple the approximate $42 million combined cost of construction for both harbour bridges. Design The bridge measures 1,200 m (3,900 ft), with the total of all suspended spans being 739.9 m (2,427 ft) in length, carrying four traffic lanes with posted speed limits of 70 km/h (43 mph). It was designed with a maximum road gradient of 4 per cent. It is notable as having been the first bridge built in North America using an orthotropic steel deck, which yielded a completed structure having half the overall mass of the nearby Macdonald Bridge. The bridge's engineering also pioneered the use of wind tunnel testing, which considered the impact of winds on the structure both during construction and when complete. In 2021 an engineer's report into the status of both the MacKay and Macdonald bridges indicated that the Mackay was approaching the end of its service life, and the need for either a major refurbishment or complete replacement was anticipated within a 20 year time frame. It also concluded that certain elements of the original design such as tight tolerance on the load capacity, and the emergence since the bridge was first built of a better understanding about fatigue in orthotropic decks, would make a re-decking project similar to the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge "Big Lift" impractical: To meet current code, a new deck would weigh more. This would mean that the replacement deck would necessitate a more extensive overhaul of other components such as the main suspension cables and support structures. Impact on development The building of the MacKay Bridge, along with Highway 111, initiated a development boom in Dartmouth which eclipsed that created by the Macdonald Bridge during the 1950s and 1960s. The Burnside Business Park, the Mic Mac Mall shopping centre, and several residential developments in the Albro Lake neighbourhood in Dartmouth's north end during the 1970s are directly attributable to the bridge's construction. See also List of bridges in Canada References External links Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission, information on A. Murray MacKay Bridge A. Murray MacKay Bridge at Structurae MarineTraffic

IPSC_Australia_Inc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPSC_Australia_Inc

IPSC Australia Inc is the Australian association for practical shooting under the International Practical Shooting Confederation. It consists of seven sections: Victoria and Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. See also IPSC Australian Handgun Championship IPSC Australian Rifle Championship IPSC Australian Shotgun Championship References External links Official homepage of IPSC Australia Inc

Western_Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australia

Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia’s largest state, with a land area of 2,527,013 square kilometres (975,685 sq mi), and is also the second-largest subdivision of any country on Earth, surpassed only by the Sakha Republic in eastern Russia. Western Australia has a diverse range of climates, including tropical conditions in the Kimberley, deserts in the interior (including the Great Sandy Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Gibson Desert, and Great Victoria Desert) and a Mediterranean climate on the south-west and southern coastal areas. As of 2021, the state has 2.91 million inhabitants—11 percent of the national total. Over 90 percent of the state's population live in the south-west corner and around 80 percent live in the state capital Perth, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated. The Trans-Australian Railway and the Eyre Highway traverse the Nullarbor Plain in the state's south-east, providing the principal connection between Western Australia and the population centres in the eastern states. Western Australia's Indigenous peoples have been present for tens of thousands of years. Dutch explorers visited Western Australia from the 17th century, with Dirk Hartog's 1616 expedition the first Europeans to make landfall. The British claimed Western Australia in 1827 and established the Swan River Colony with Perth as its capital in 1829. The Western Australian gold rushes of the late 19th century resulted in a significant population influx. The colony was granted responsible government in 1890, the last of the Australian colonies to become self-governing, and federated with the other colonies in 1901. Western Australia's mining sector is a key driver of the state economy. The late 20th century saw the development of the state's significant iron ore mining industry – the world's largest – as well as primarily offshore petroleum and natural gas resources. Gold mining retains a significant presence and many other mineral commodities are mined, with Perth being a major centre for associated services. Outside of mining, primary industry is the other significant contributor to the state's economy, including agriculture in the Wheatbelt and temperate southern coastal regions, pastoralism in marginal grassland areas, forestry in the south-west and fishing (including pearling and, historically, whaling). History Western Australia has a geological history dating back to 4.4 billion years ago when Hadean zircons were formed. The earliest direct known life on land, known as stromatolites, started to be created by microbes at around 3.48 billion years ago. The first human inhabitants of Australia arrived from the north "over 50,000 years ago and possibly as much as 70,000 years ago".: 5  Over thousands of years they eventually spread across the whole landmass. These Indigenous Australians were long established throughout Western Australia by the time European explorers began to arrive in the early 17th century. The first Europeans to visit Western Australia were those of the Dutch Dirk Hartog expedition, who on 25 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. For the rest of the 17th century, other Dutch and British navigators encountered the coast of what Abel Tasman named New Holland in 1644, usually unintentionally as demonstrated by the many shipwrecks along the coast of ships that deviated from the Brouwer Route (because of poor navigation and storms). By the late 18th century, British and French sailors had begun to explore the Western Australian coast. The Baudin expedition of 1800–03 included the coast of Western Australia and resulted in the Freycinet Map of 1811, the first published map featuring the full outline of Australia. The name New Holland remained in popular and semi-official use until at least the mid-1850s; that is, it was in use for about 206 years in comparison to the name Australia which to date has been in use for about 195 years.: 11  The origins of the present state began with the establishment by Lockyer of a convict-supported settlement from New South Wales at King George III Sound. The settlement was formally annexed on 21 January 1827 by Lockyer when he commanded the Union Jack be raised and a feu de joie fired by the troops. The settlement was founded in response to British concerns about the possibility of a French colony being established on the coast of Western Australia. On 7 March 1831 it was transferred to the control of the Swan River Colony, and named Albany in 1832. In 1829 the Swan River Colony was established on the Swan River by Captain James Stirling. By 1832, the British settler population of the colony had reached around 1,500, and the official name of the colony was changed to Western Australia on 6 February that year. The two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the state's capital, Perth. York was the first inland settlement in Western Australia, situated 97 kilometres (60 mi) east of Perth and settled on 16 September 1831. York was the staging point for early explorers who discovered the rich gold reserves of Kalgoorlie. Population growth was very slow until significant discoveries of gold were made in the 1890s around Kalgoorlie. In 1887, a new constitution was drafted, providing for the right of self-governance of European Australians, and in 1890, the act granting self-government to the colony was passed by the British Parliament. John Forrest became the first Premier of Western Australia. In 1896, after discoveries of gold at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, the Western Australian Parliament authorised the raising of a loan to construct a pipeline to transport 23 megalitres (5 million imperial gallons) of water per day to the burgeoning population on the goldfields. The pipeline, known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, was completed in 1903.  C. Y.  O'Connor, Western Australia's first engineer-in-chief, designed and oversaw the construction of the pipeline. It carries water 530 km (330 mi) from Perth to Kalgoorlie, and is attributed by historians as an important factor driving the state's population and economic growth. Following a campaign led by Forrest, electors of the colony of Western Australia voted in favour of federation with the five other Australian colonies, resulting in Western Australia officially becoming a state on 1 January 1901. Geography Western Australia is bounded to the east by longitude 129°E, the meridian 129 degrees east of Greenwich, which defines the border with South Australia and the Northern Territory, and bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean; in Australia it is officially gazetted as the Southern Ocean. The total length of the state's eastern border is 1,862 km (1,157 mi). There are 20,781 km (12,913 mi) of coastline, including 7,892 km (4,904 mi) of island coastline. The total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2 (970 thousand sq mi). Geology The bulk of Western Australia consists of the extremely old Yilgarn craton and Pilbara craton which merged with the Deccan Plateau of India, Madagascar and the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons of Southern Africa, in the Archean Eon to form Ur, one of the oldest supercontinents on Earth (3 – 3.2 billion years ago). In May 2017, evidence of the earliest known life on land may have been found in 3.48-billion-year-old geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around hot springs and geysers) uncovered in the Pilbara craton. Because the only mountain-building since then has been of the Stirling Range with the rifting from Antarctica, the land is extremely eroded and ancient, with no part of the state above 1,249 metres (4,098 ft) AHD (at Mount Meharry in the Hamersley Range of the Pilbara region). Most of the state is a low plateau with an average elevation of about 400 metres (1,200 ft), very low relief, and no surface runoff. This descends relatively sharply to the coastal plains, in some cases forming a sharp escarpment (as with the Darling Range/Darling Scarp near Perth). The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile and frequently laterised. Even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum and sometimes potassium and calcium. The infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of fertilisers. These have resulted in damage to invertebrate and bacterial populations. The grazing and use of hoofed mammals and, later, heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils. Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora and fauna. As a result, the South West region of the state has a higher concentration of rare, threatened or endangered flora and fauna than many areas of Australia, making it one of the world's biodiversity "hot spots". Large areas of the state's wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water. Climate The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate. It was originally heavily forested, including large stands of karri, one of the tallest trees in the world. This agricultural region is one of the nine most bio-diverse terrestrial habitats, with a higher proportion of endemic species than most other equivalent regions. Thanks to the offshore Leeuwin Current, the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world. Average annual rainfall varies from 300 millimetres (12 in) at the edge of the Wheatbelt region to 1,400 millimetres (55 in) in the wettest areas near Northcliffe, but from November to March, evaporation exceeds rainfall, and it is generally very dry. Plants are adapted to this as well as the extreme poverty of all soils. The central two-thirds of the state is arid and sparsely inhabited. The only significant economic activity is mining. Annual rainfall averages less than 300 millimetres (8–10 in), most of which occurs in sporadic torrential falls related to cyclone events in summer. An exception to this is the northern tropical regions. The Kimberley has an extremely hot monsoonal climate with average annual rainfall ranging from 500 to 1,500 millimetres (20–60 in), but there is a very long almost rainless season from April to November. Eighty-five percent of the state's runoff occurs in the Kimberley, but because it occurs in violent floods and because of the insurmountable poverty of the generally shallow soils, the only development has taken place along the Ord River. Snow is rare in the state and typically occurs only in the Stirling Range near Albany, as it is the only mountain range far enough south and sufficiently elevated. More rarely, snow can fall on the nearby Porongurup Range. Snow outside these areas is a major event; it usually occurs in hilly areas of southwestern Australia. The most widespread low-level snow occurred on 26 June 1956 when snow was reported in the Perth Hills, as far north as Wongan Hills and as far east as Salmon Gums. However, even in the Stirling Range, snowfalls rarely exceed 5 cm (2 in) and rarely settle for more than one day. The highest observed temperature of 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) was recorded in Onslow on 13 January 2022. The lowest temperature recorded was −7.2 °C (19.0 °F) at Eyre Bird Observatory on 17 August 2008. The south geomagnetic pole is currently tilted 10 degrees away from the South Pole towards Western Australia, allowing for aurora australis displays as far north as Geraldton. Flora and fauna Western Australia is home to around 630 species of birds (depending on the taxonomy used). Of these around 15 are endemic to the state. The best areas for birds are the southwestern corner of the state and the area around Broome and the Kimberley. The Flora of Western Australia comprises 10,162 published native vascular plant species, along with a further 1,196 species currently recognised but unpublished. They occur within 1,543 genera from 211 families; there are also 1,276 naturalised alien or invasive plant species, more commonly known as weeds. In the southwest region are some of the largest numbers of plant species for its area in the world. Western Australia's ecoregions include the sandstone gorges of the Kimberley on the northern coast, and below that the drier Victoria Plains tropical savanna inland, and the semi-desert Pilbara shrublands, Carnarvon xeric shrublands, and Western Australian mulga shrublands to the southwest. Southwards along the coast are the Southwest Australia savanna and the Swan Coastal Plain around Perth, with the jarrah-karri forest and shrublands on the southwest corner of the coast around the Margaret River wine-growing area. Going east along the Southern Ocean coast is the Goldfields-Esperance region, including the Esperance mallee and the Coolgardie woodlands inland around town of Coolgardie. Deserts occupy the interior, including the Great Sandy-Tanami desert, Gibson Desert, Great Victoria Desert, and Nullarbor Plain. In 1831 Scottish botanist Robert Brown produced a scientific paper, General view of the botany of the vicinity of Swan River. It discusses the vegetation of the Swan River Colony. Demographics Europeans began to settle permanently in 1826 when Albany was claimed by Britain to forestall French claims to the western third of the continent. Perth was founded as the Swan River Colony in 1829 by British and Irish settlers, though the outpost languished. Its officials eventually requested convict labour to augment its population. In the 1890s, interstate immigration, resulting from a mining boom in the Goldfields region, resulted in a sharp population increase. Western Australia did not receive significant flows of immigrants from Britain, Ireland or elsewhere in the British Empire until the early 20th century. At that time, its local projects—such as the Group Settlement Scheme of the 1920s, which encouraged farmers to settle the southwest—increased awareness of Australia's western third as a destination for colonists. Led by immigrants from the British Isles, Western Australia's population developed at a faster rate during the twentieth century than it had previously. After World War II, both the eastern states and Western Australia received large numbers of Italians, Croatians and Macedonians. Despite this, Britain has contributed the greatest number of immigrants to this day. Western Australia—particularly Perth—has the highest proportion of British-born of any state: 10.3% in 2011, compared to a national average of 5.1%. This group is heavily concentrated in certain parts, where they account for a quarter of the population. Perth's metropolitan area (including Mandurah) had an estimated population of 2,043,138 in June 2017 (79% of the state). Other significant population centres include Bunbury (73,989), Geraldton (37,961), Kalgoorlie-Boulder (30,420), Albany (33,998), Karratha (16,446), Broome (14,501) and Port Hedland (14,285). Ancestry and immigration At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 3.1% of the population, or 75,978 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. Language At the 2016 census, 75.2% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.9%), Italian (1.2%), Vietnamese (0.8%), Cantonese (0.8%) and Tagalog (0.6%). Religion According to the 2021 census, Christianity is the major religious affiliation in WA, followed by 41.1% of its population. In 1971, Christianity was followed by 85.5% of the population and it has been declining since, while the percentage of people who identified as having no religious affiliation has increased from 8.7% in 1971 to 42.9% in 2021. A small minority of the population are Muslims (2.5%), Buddhists (2.2%) and Hindus (2.0%). Economy Western Australia's economy is largely driven by extraction and processing of a diverse range of mineral and petroleum commodities. The structure of the economy is closely linked to these natural resources, providing a comparative advantage in resource extraction and processing. As a consequence: Western Australia contributes an estimated 58% of Australia's Mineral and Energy Exports, potentially earning up to 4.64% of Australia's total GDP. Gross state product per person ($97,940 in 2017–18) is higher than any other state and well above the national average ($73,267). Diversification (i.e. a greater range of commodities) over the past 15 years has provided a more balanced production base and less reliance on just a few major export markets, insulating the economy from fluctuations in world prices to some extent. Finance, insurance and property services and construction have grown steadily and have increased their share of economic output. Recent growth in global demand for minerals and petroleum, especially in China (iron-ore) and Japan (for LNG), has ensured economic growth above the national average. In 2019 Western Australia's overseas exports accounted for 46% of the nation's total. The state's major export commodities included iron-ore, petroleum, gold, alumina, nickel, wheat, copper, lithium, chemicals and mineral sands. Western Australia is the world's largest iron-ore producer (34% of the world's total), and extracts 66% (6.9% of world production) of Australia's 306 tonnes (9.8 million troy ounces) of gold in 2022. It is a major world producer of bauxite, which is processed into alumina at four refineries providing 11% of total world production. Until 2020 diamonds were extracted from the world's largest diamond mine in the far north Kimberley region. Coal mined at Collie is the main fuel for baseload electricity generation in the state's south-west. Agricultural production in WA is a major contributor to the state and national economy. In the period 2010–2019 wheat production in WA has averaged nearly 10 million tonnes (22 billion pounds), valued at $2.816 billion in 2019, accounting for half the nation's total and providing $2–3 billion in export income. Other significant farm output includes wool, beef, lamb, barley, canola, lupins, oats and pulses. There is a high level of overseas demand for live animals from WA, driven mainly by southeast Asia's feedlots and Middle Eastern countries, where Islamic dietary laws and a lack of storage and refrigeration facilities favour live animals over imports of processed meat. About half of Australia's live cattle exports come from Western Australia. Resource sector growth in recent years has resulted in significant labour and skills shortages, leading to recent efforts by the state government to encourage interstate and overseas immigration. According to the 2006 census, the median individual income was A$500 per week in Western Australia (compared to A$466 in Australia as a whole). The median family income was A$1246 per week (compared to A$1171 for Australia). Recent growth has also contributed to significant rises in average property values in 2006, although values plateaued in 2007. Located south of Perth, the heavy industrial area of Kwinana had the nation's largest oil refinery with a capacity of 23,200 cubic metres per day (146,000 barrels per day) until its closure in 2021, producing most of the state's petrol and diesel. Kwinana also hosts alumina and nickel processing plants, port facilities for grain and other bulk exports, and support industries for mining and petroleum such as heavy and light engineering, and metal fabrication. Shipbuilding (e.g. Austal) and associated support industries are found at nearby Henderson, just north of Kwinana. Significant secondary industries include cement and building product manufacturing, flour milling, food processing, animal feed production, automotive body building and printing. Western Australia has a significant fishing industry. Products for local consumption and export include western rock lobsters, prawns, crabs, shark and tuna, as well as pearl fishing in the Kimberley region of the state. Processing is conducted along the west coast. Whaling was a key marine industry but ceased at Albany in 1978. Western Australia has the world's biggest plantations of both Indian sandalwood (northern WA) and Australian sandalwood (semi-arid regions), which are used to produce sandalwood oil and incense. The WA sandalwood industry provides about 40% of the international sandalwood oil market. Tourism In recent years, tourism has grown in importance, with significant numbers of visitors to the state coming from the UK and Ireland (28%), other European countries (14%) Singapore (16%), Japan (10%) and Malaysia (8%). Revenue from tourism is a strong economic driver in many of the smaller population centres outside of Perth, especially in coastal locations. Tourism forms a major part of the Western Australian economy with 833,100 international visitors making up 12.8% of the total international tourism to Australia in the year ending March 2015. The top three source markets include the United Kingdom (17%), Singapore (10%), and New Zealand (10%) with the majority of purpose for visitation being holiday/vacation reasons. The tourism industry contributes $9.3 billion to the Western Australian economy and supports 94,000 jobs within the state. Both directly and indirectly, the industry makes up 3.2% of the state's economy whilst comparatively, WA's largest revenue source, the mining sector, brings in 31%. Tourism WA is the government agency responsible for promoting Western Australia as a holiday destination. Government Western Australia was granted self-government in 1890 with a bicameral Parliament located in Perth, consisting of the Legislative Assembly (or lower house), which has 59 members; and the Legislative Council (or upper house), which has 36 members. Suffrage is universal and compulsory for citizens over 18 years of age. With the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, Western Australia became a state within Australia's federal structure; this involved ceding certain powers to the Commonwealth (or Federal) government in accordance with the Constitution; all powers not specifically granted to the Commonwealth remained solely with the State. However over time the Commonwealth has effectively expanded its powers through broad interpretation of its enumerated powers and increasing control of taxation and financial distribution (see Federalism in Australia). Whilst the sovereign of Western Australia is the monarch of Australia (currently Charles III) and executive power is nominally vested in his or her state representative, the Governor (currently Chris Dawson), executive power rests with the premier and ministers drawn from the party or coalition of parties holding a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. Roger Cook is the premier, having succeeded Mark McGowan after his resignation in June 2023. Secession Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia's political landscape since shortly after European settlement in 1826. Western Australia was the most reluctant participant in the Commonwealth of Australia. Western Australia did not participate in the earliest federation conference. Longer-term residents of Western Australia were generally opposed to federation; however, the discovery of gold brought many immigrants from other parts of Australia. It was these residents, primarily in Kalgoorlie but also in Albany who voted to join the Commonwealth, and the proposal of these areas being admitted separately under the name Auralia was considered. In a referendum in April 1933, 68% of voters voted for the state to leave the Commonwealth of Australia with the aim of returning to the British Empire as an autonomous territory. The State Government sent a delegation to Westminster, but the British Government ruled that after the Statute of Westminster 1931, it no longer had the authority to amend the constitution of Australia without the consent of its federal government; the British Government took no action. Local government Western Australia is divided into 139 Local Government Areas, including Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Their mandate and operations are governed by the Local Government Act 1995. Education Education in Western Australia consists of one year of pre-school at age 4 or 5, followed by six years of primary education for all students as of 2015. At age 12 or 13, students begin six years of secondary education. Students are required to attend school up until they are 16 years old. Sixteen and 17 year olds are required to be enrolled in school or a training organisation, be employed or be in a combination of school/training/employment. Students have the option to study at a TAFE college after Year 10, or continue through to Year 12 with vocational courses or a university entrance courses. There are five universities in Western Australia. They consist of four Perth-based public universities, being the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University and Murdoch University; and one Fremantle-based private Roman Catholic university, the University of Notre Dame Australia. The University of Notre Dame is also one of only two private universities in Australia, along with Bond University, a not-for-profit private education provider based in Gold Coast, Queensland. Media Print Western Australia has two daily newspapers: the Seven West Media-owned tabloid The West Australian and the Kalgoorlie Miner. Also published is one weekend paper, The Weekend West, and one Sunday tabloid newspaper, which is also owned by Seven West Media after purchase from News Corporation's The Sunday Times. There are also 17 weekly community newspapers with distribution from Yanchep in the north to Mandurah in the south. There are two major weekly rural papers in the state, Countryman and the Australian Community Media-owned Farm Weekly. The national broadsheet publication The Australian is also available, although with sales per capita lagging far behind those in other states. WAtoday is an online newspaper owned by Nine Entertainment, focusing its coverage on Perth and Western Australia. Television Metropolitan Perth has five broadcast television stations; ABC TV WA. (Callsign: ABW – Channel 12 Digital) SBS WA. (Callsign: SBS – was on Channel 29 Digital – now Channel 7 Digital since the 2013 retune) Seven Network Perth. (Callsign: TVW – Channel 6 Digital) Nine Network Perth. (Callsign: STW – Channel 8 Digital) Network Ten Perth. (Callsign: NEW – Channel 11 Digital) Perth formerly had West TV, a free-to-air community television channel that began broadcasting in April 2010 and ceased broadcasting in February 2020. It replaced Access 31, which ceased broadcasting in August 2008. Regional WA has a similar availability of stations as Perth. Geographically, it is one of the largest television markets in the world, including almost one-third of the continent. Golden West Network (GWN7). Owned by Seven West Media. (Callsigns: SSW South West, VEW Goldfields/Esperance, GTW Central West, WAW remote areas) WIN Television WA. Affiliated with Nine (Callsign: WOW) West Digital Television. Affiliated with Ten (Callsigns: SDW South West, VDW Goldfields/Esperance, GDW Central West, WDW remote areas) Regional WA used to have Westlink. An open-narrowcast community-based television channel that was only on satellite until Westlink's discontinuation in 2018. (Satellite only) In addition, broadcasters operate digital multichannels: ABC HD (Carried by ABW) ABC TV Plus (Carried by ABW) ABC Me (Carried by ABW) ABC News (Carried by ABW) SBS HD (Carried by SBS) SBS Viceland (Carried by SBS) SBS World Movies (Carried by SBS) SBS Food (Carried by SBS) NITV (Carried by SBS) SBS WorldWatch (Carried by SBS) 7HD (Carried by TVW) 7TWO (Carried by TVW and affiliates) 7mate (Carried by TVW and affiliates) 7flix (Carried by TVW) Racing.com (Carried by TVW and affiliates) 9HD (Carried by STW and affiliates) 9Gem (Carried by STW and affiliates) 9Go! (Carried by STW and affiliates) 9Life (Carried by STW and affiliates) 9Rush (Carried by STW) Extra (Carried by STW) 10 Bold (Carried by NEW and affiliate) 10 Peach (Carried by NEW and affiliate) 10 Shake (Carried by NEW) 10 HD (Carried by NEW and affiliate) TVSN (Carried by NEW and affiliate) Gecko TV (Carried by NEW) Pay TV services are provided by Foxtel, which acquired many of the assets and all the remaining subscribers of the insolvent Galaxy Television satellite service in 1998. Some metropolitan suburbs are serviced by Pay TV via cable; however, most of the metropolitan and rural areas can only access Pay TV via satellite. Radio Perth has many radio stations on both AM and FM frequencies. ABC stations include ABC NewsRadio (6PB 585 AM), ABC Radio Perth (6WF 720 AM), Radio National (6RN 810 AM), ABC Classic FM (6ABC 97.7FM) and Triple J (6JJJ 99.3FM). The six commercial stations are: Triple M (6PPM), Nova 93.7 (6PER), Mix 94.5 (6MIX), 96FM (6NOW) and AM 882 (6PR), AM 1080 (6iX) and AM 1116 (6MM) The leading community radio stations are Curtin FM 100.1, 6RTR FM 92.1, Sonshine FM 98.5 (6SON) and 91.3 SportFM (6WSM). Culture Arts and entertainment Western Australia is home to one of the country's leading performance training institutions, the acclaimed Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), as well as a burgeoning theatrical and musical scene. Notable musicians and bands to have been born in or lived in Western Australia include Adam Brand, Ammonia, Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo, Bon Scott, Eskimo Joe, Johnny Young, Gyroscope, the John Butler Trio, Tame Impala, Kevin Mitchell, Tim Minchin, Troye Sivan, the Kill Devil Hills, Pendulum, the Pigram Brothers, Rolf Harris, Stella Donnelly and the Triffids. The West Australian Music Industry Awards (WAMis) have been awarded every year to the leading musicians and performers in WA since 2001. Notable actors and television personalities from Western Australia include Heath Ledger, Sam Worthington, Ernie Dingo, Jessica Marais, Megan Gale, Rove McManus, Isla Fisher, and Melissa George. Films and television series filmed or partly filmed in Western Australia include Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Heights, Mystery Road, These Final Hours, Cloudstreet, Jasper Jones, Australia, Bran Nu Dae, Red Dog, ABBA: the Movie and Last Train to Freo. Noted Western Australian Indigenous painters and artisans include Jack Dale Mengenen, Paddy Bedford, Queenie McKenzie, and siblings Nyuju Stumpy Brown and Rover Thomas. The West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) is based at the Perth Concert Hall. Other concert, performance and indoor sporting venues in Western Australia include His Majesty's Theatre, the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, the Crown Theatre and Perth Arena, which opened in 2012. Performing arts companies based in Perth include the West Australian Ballet, the West Australian Opera, the Black Swan State Theatre Company and the Perth Theatre Company. Western Australia has served as the setting for a number of works of Australian literature. Prominent authors include Katharine Susannah Prichard, Randolph Stow, Tim Winton, Kim Scott, Sally Morgan, Joan London, Mary Durack and Craig Silvey. The public Art Gallery of Western Australia is part of the Perth Cultural Centre. Founded in 1895, it houses the State Art Collection, comprising works from local and international artists, dating back to the 1800s. The Perth Cultural Centre is also home to the Western Australian Museum, State Library of Western Australia, State Records Office, and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). Western Australia has a public library system, with libraries in every local government area (although some public libraries are shared school libraries). Sport A number of national or international sporting teams and events are based in the state, including: Australian rules football: The West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers compete in the Australian Football League (AFL). They also have women's teams playing in the AFL Women's league. The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is the main local football competition, but other local and amateur football leagues exist across the state. Baseball: The Perth Heat compete in the Australian Baseball League. Basketball: The Perth Wildcats (men) and Perth Lynx (women) compete in the National Basketball League and Women's National Basketball League, respectively. Cricket: Western Australia represent the state in first-class and List A domestic cricket, with the Perth Scorchers competing in the Twenty20 Big Bash League. Field hockey: The Thundersticks (men) and Diamonds (women) compete in the Australian Hockey League. Netball: The West Coast Fever compete in the ANZ Championship. Rugby league: The West Coast Pirates compete in the S. G. Ball Cup. Rugby union: The Western Force competes in Super Rugby Pacific. Soccer: Perth Glory field men's and women's teams in the A-League Men and A-League Women, respectively. Tennis: The ITF Hopman Cup, an annual international team indoor hardcourt tennis tournament. Water Polo: The UWA Torpedoes water polo club competes in the National Water Polo League (NWPL). International sporting events hosted in the past in Western Australia include the Tom Hoad Cup (water polo), the Perth International (golf), the 2006 Gravity Games (extreme sports), the 2002 Women's Hockey World Cup, the 1991 FINA World Aquatics Championships, the World Rally Championships and the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Western Australia's largest sports stadium is Perth Stadium, also known by naming rights sponsorship as Optus Stadium. It has a capacity of over 60,000 people and is primarily used for Australian rules football and cricket. Wine Winemaking regions are concentrated in the cooler climate of the south-western portion of the state. Western Australia produces less than 5% of the country's wine output, but in quality terms is considered to be very much near the top. Major wine producing regions include: Margaret River, The Great Southern, Swan Valley as well as smaller districts including Blackwood Valley, Manjimup, Pemberton, Peel, Chittering Valley, Perth Hills, and Geographe. Sister states Western Australia has five sister states: East Java, Indonesia Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan Andhra Pradesh State, India Tuscany Region, Italy Zhejiang Province, China In 1981, a sister state agreement was drawn up between Western Australia and Hyōgo Prefecture in Japan that was aimed at improving cultural ties between the two states. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of this agreement, the Hyōgo Prefectural Government Cultural Centre was established in Perth in 1992. Prior to that, the Western Australian government opened an office in Kobe, the largest city in Hyōgo, to facilitate maintenance of the relationship in 1989. Following the Great Hanshin earthquake that devastated southern Hyōgo in January 1995, Western Australian groups and businesses raised funds and provided materials, whilst individuals travelled to Hyōgo to help with emergency relief and the subsequent reconstruction process. The two governments signed a memorandum of understanding on the 20th anniversary in 2001 that aimed to improve the economic relationship between the two states. Further to the sister state relationship, the City of Rockingham in Western Australia and the City of Akō in Hyōgo signed a sister city agreement in 1997. It is one of nine sister city relationships between Western Australian and Japanese cities. See also Outline of Australia Index of Australia-related articles Government of Western Australia Mining in Western Australia Petroleum in Western Australia Lists List of Western Australian towns List of statues in Western Australia Local Government Areas of Western Australia Category:Lists of people from Western Australia Notes "West Australia" and its related demonym "West Australian" are occasionally used, including in the names of the main daily newspaper, The West Australian, and the state-based West Australian Football League, but are rarely used in an official sense. The terms "Westralia" and "Westralian" were regularly used in the 19th and 20th century. The terms are still found in the names of certain companies and buildings, e.g. Westralia House in Perth, the skyscraper Westralia Square on St Georges Terrace, and Westralia Airports Corporation, which operates Perth Airport, as well as in the names of several ships. References Further reading Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2020). Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199812790. External links Geographic data related to Western Australia at OpenStreetMap Welcome to Western Australia, a tourist website run by Tourism Western Australia, the statutory authority responsible for promoting Western Australia as a tourist destination Western Australia government's website Watch historical footage of Western Australia from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's collection. Watch audiovisual material relating to Western Australia on the National Film and Sound Archive's australianscreen online.

Victoria_(state)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(state)

Victoria (commonly abbreviated as Vic) is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of 227,444 km2 (87,817 sq mi); the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 6.9 million; and the most densely populated state in Australia (30.6 per km2). Victoria's economy is the second-largest among Australian states and is highly diversified, with service sectors predominating. Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north and South Australia to the west and is bounded by the Bass Strait to the south (with the exception of a small land border with Tasmania located along Boundary Islet), the Great Australian Bight portion of the Southern Ocean to the southwest, and the Tasman Sea (a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean) to the southeast. The state encompasses a range of climates and geographical features from its temperate coastal and central regions to the Victorian Alps in the northeast and the semi-arid northwest. The majority of the Victorian population is concentrated in the central-south area surrounding Port Phillip, and in particular within the metropolitan area of Greater Melbourne, Victoria's state capital and largest city and also Australia's second-largest city, where over three-quarters of the culturally diverse population live (35.1% of inhabitants being immigrants). The state is also home to four of Australia's 20 largest cities: Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. Victoria is home to numerous Aboriginal groups, including the Boonwurrung, the Bratauolung, the Djadjawurrung, the Gunai, the Gunditjmara, the Taungurung, the Wathaurong, the Wurundjeri, and the Yorta Yorta. There were more than 30 Aboriginal languages spoken in the area prior to European colonisation. In 1770 James Cook claimed the east coast of the Australian continent for the Kingdom of Great Britain. The first European settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay. Much of Victoria was included in 1836 in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. Named in honour of Queen Victoria, Victoria was separated from New South Wales and established as a separate Crown colony in 1851, achieving responsible government in 1855. The Victorian gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s significantly increased Victoria's population and wealth. By the time of Australian Federation in 1901, Melbourne had become the largest city in Australasia, and was the seat of Federal government until Canberra became the national capital in 1927. The state continued to grow strongly through various periods of the 20th and 21st centuries due to high levels of international and interstate migration. Melbourne hosts a number of museums, art galleries, and theatres; in 2016 a sports marketing company named it the world's sporting capital. Victoria has 38 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate. At state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The Labor Party, led by Jacinta Allan as premier, has governed Victoria since 2014. The Governor of Victoria, the representative of the monarch in the state, is currently Margaret Gardner. Victoria is divided into 79 local government areas, as well as several unincorporated areas which the state administers directly. History Indigenous Victorians The state of Victoria was home to many Aboriginal Australian nations that had occupied the land for tens of thousands of years before European settlement. According to Gary Presland, Aboriginal people have lived in Victoria for about 40,000 years, living a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering, and farming eels. At the Keilor Archaeological Site, a human hearth excavated in 1971 was radiocarbon-dated to about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia. A cranium found at the site has been dated at between 12,000 and 14,700 years BP. Archaeological sites in Tasmania and on the Bass Strait Islands have been dated to between 20,000 to 35,000 years ago when sea levels were 130 metres below present level allowing First Nations Peoples to move across the region of southern Victoria and onto the land bridge of the Bassian plain to Tasmania by at least 35,000 years ago. During the Ice Age about 20,000 years BP, the area now the bay of Port Phillip would have been dry land, and the Yarra and Werribee rivers would have joined to flow through the heads then south and south west through the Bassian plain before meeting the ocean to the west. Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands became separated from mainland Australia around 12,000 BP, when the sea level was approximately 50m below present levels. Port Phillip was flooded by post-glacial rising sea levels between 8000 and 6000 years ago. Oral history and creation stories from the Wada wurrung, Woiwurrung and Bun wurrung languages describe the flooding of the bay. Hobsons Bay was once a kangaroo hunting ground. Creation stories describe how Bunjil was responsible for the formation of the bay, or the bay was flooded when the Yarra River was created. British colonisation Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. After the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788, Australia was divided into an eastern half named New South Wales and a western half named New Holland, under the administration of the colonial government in Sydney. The first British settlement in the area later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. It consisted of 402 people (five government officials, nine officers of marines, two drummers, and 39 privates, five soldiers' wives and a child, 307 convicts, 17 convicts' wives, and seven children). They had been sent from England in HMS Calcutta under the command of Captain Daniel Woodriff, principally out of fear that the French, who had been exploring the area, might establish their own settlement and thereby challenge British rights to the continent. In 1826, Colonel Stewart, Captain Samuel Wright, and Lieutenant Burchell were sent in HMS Fly (Captain Wetherall) and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. The expedition landed at Settlement Point (now Corinella), on the eastern side of Western Port Bay, which was the headquarters until the abandonment of Western Port at the insistence of Governor Darling about 12 months afterwards. Victoria's next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria. Edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Batman's treaty Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, and John Pascoe Fawkner. From settlement, the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after, the site now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe, three weeks after Melbourne. And in 1838, Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier European settlements dating back to 1826. On 6 June 1835, just under two years before Melbourne was officially recognised as a settlement, John Batman, the leader of the Port Phillip Association presented Wurundjeri Elders with a land use agreement. This document, now referred to as the Batman treaty, was later given to the British government to claim that local Aboriginal people had given Batman access to their land in exchange for goods and rations. The treaty itself was declared void as Batman did not have permission from the Crown to establish Melbourne. Today, the meaning and interpretation of this treaty is contested. Some argue it was a pretence for taking Aboriginal land in exchange for trinkets, while others argue it was significant in that it sought to recognise Aboriginal land rights. The exact location of the meeting between Batman and the Kulin men with whom he made the treaty is unknown, although it is believed to have been by the Merri Creek. According to historian Meyer Eidelson, it is generally believed to have occurred on the Merri near modern-day Rushall Station. Colonial Victoria On 1 July 1851, writs were issued for the election of the first Victorian Legislative Council, and the absolute independence of Victoria from New South Wales was established proclaiming a new Colony of Victoria. Days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at many sites across Victoria. This triggered one of the largest gold rushes the world has ever seen. The colony grew rapidly in both population and economic power. In 10 years, the population of Victoria increased sevenfold from 76,000 to 540,000. All sorts of gold records were produced, including the "richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world" and the largest gold nugget. In the decade 1851–1860 Victoria produced 20 million ounces of gold, one-third of the world's output. In 1855 the Geological Survey collected and determined the major ion chemistry for groundwater in Victoria. Immigrants arrived from all over the world to search for gold, especially from Ireland and China. By 1857, 26,000 Chinese miners worked in Victoria, and their legacy is particularly strong in Bendigo and its environs. In 1854 at Ballarat, an armed rebellion against the government of Victoria was made by miners protesting against mining taxes (the "Eureka Stockade"). This was crushed by British troops, but the confrontation persuaded the colonial authorities to reform the administration of mining concessions (reducing the hated mining licence fees) and extend the electoral franchise. The following year, the Imperial Parliament granted Victoria responsible government with the passage of the Colony of Victoria Act 1855. Some of the leaders of the Eureka rebellion went on to become members of the Victorian Parliament. In 1857, reflecting the growing presence of Irish Catholic immigrants, John O'Shanassy became the colony's second Premier with the former Young Irelander, Charles Gavan Duffy as his deputy. Melbourne's Protestant establishment was ill-prepared "to countenance so startling a novelty". In 1858–59, Melbourne Punch cartoons linked Duffy and O'Shanassy to the terrors of the French Revolution. In 1862 Duffy's Land Act attempted, but failed, through a system of extended pastoral licences, to break the land-holding monopoly of the so-called "squatter" class. In 1871, having led, on behalf of small farmers, opposition to Premier Sir James McCulloch's land tax, Duffy, himself, was briefly Premier. In 1893 widespread bank failures brought to an end a sustained period of prosperity and of increasingly wild speculation in land and construction. Melbourne nonetheless retained, as the legacy of the gold rush, its status as Australia's primary financial centre and largest city. In 1901, Victoria became a state in the Commonwealth of Australia. While Canberra was being built, Melbourne served until 1927 as the country's first federal capital. Geography Victoria's northern border follows a straight line from Cape Howe to the start of the Murray River and then follows the Murray River as the remainder of the northern border. On the Murray River, the border is the southern bank of the river. This precise definition was not established until 1980, when a ruling by Justice Ninian Stephen of the High Court of Australia settled the question as to which state had jurisdiction in the unlawful death of a man on an island in the middle of the river. The ruling clarified that no part of the watercourse is in Victoria. The border also rests at the southern end of the Great Dividing Range, which stretches along the east coast and terminates west of Ballarat. It is bordered by South Australia to the west and shares Australia's shortest land border with Tasmania. The official border between Victoria and Tasmania is at 39°12' S, which passes through Boundary Islet in the Bass Strait for 85 metres. Victoria contains many topographically, geologically and climatically diverse areas, ranging from the wet, temperate climate of Gippsland in the southeast to the snow-covered Victorian alpine areas which rise to almost 2,000 m (6,600 ft), with Mount Bogong the highest peak at 1,986 m (6,516 ft). There are extensive semi-arid plains to the west and northwest. There is an extensive series of river systems in Victoria. Most notable is the Murray River system. Other rivers include: Ovens River, Goulburn River, Patterson River, King River, Campaspe River, Loddon River, Wimmera River, Elgin River, Barwon River, Thomson River, Snowy River, Latrobe River, Yarra River, Maribyrnong River, Mitta River, Hopkins River, Merri River and Kiewa River. The state symbols include the pink heath (state flower), Leadbeater's possum (state animal) and the helmeted honeyeater (state bird). Ecological communities include Victorian Volcanic Plain grasslands, Northern Plains Grassland and Gippsland Plains Grassy Woodland, all of which are critically endangered. According to Geoscience Australia, the geographic centre of Victoria is located in Mandurang at 36° 51' 15"S, 144° 16' 52" E. The small rural locality is located 10 km (6 mi) south of Bendigo. Due to its central location and the region's historical ties to the gold rush, the town is widely regarded as the "Heart of Gold". The state's capital, Melbourne, contains about 70% of the state's population and dominates its economy, media, and culture. For other cities and towns, see list of localities (Victoria) and local government areas of Victoria. Regions Victoria is divided into distinct geographic regions, most commonly for the purposes of economic development, while others for land management (agriculture or conservation) and for censusing (statistical or meteorological) or electoral purposes. The most commonly used regions are those created by the state government for the purposes of economic development. In addition to Greater Melbourne, the Victoria State Government has divided Victoria into five regions covering all parts of the state. The five regional Victoria divisions are: Barwon South West Gippsland Grampians Hume Loddon Mallee The Australian Bureau of Meteorology defines regions for its own purposes, some of which share names with the economic regions, even though the exact boundaries may not correlate. As of November 2014, they are: Mallee Wimmera Northern Country North East Victoria East Gippsland West & South Gippsland Central Victoria North Central Victoria South West Victoria Alpine Victoria Melbourne Cities and towns This is a list of places in the Australian state of Victoria by population. Urban centres are defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as being a population cluster of 1,000 or more people. The below figures broadly represent the populations of the contiguous built-up areas of each city: Climate Victoria has a varied climate that ranges from semi-arid temperate with hot summers in the north-west, to temperate and cool along the coast. Victoria's main land feature, the Great Dividing Range, produces a cooler, mountain climate in the centre of the state. Winters along the coast of the state, particularly around Melbourne, are relatively mild (see chart). The coastal plain south of the Great Dividing Range has Victoria's mildest climate. Air from the Southern Ocean helps reduce the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Melbourne and other large cities are located in this temperate region. The Mallee and upper Wimmera are Victoria's warmest regions with hot winds blowing from nearby semi-deserts. Average temperatures exceed 32 °C (90 °F) during summer and 15 °C (59 °F) in winter. Except at cool mountain elevations, the inland monthly temperatures are 2–7 °C (4–13 °F) warmer than around Melbourne (see chart). Victoria's highest maximum temperature of 48.8 °C (119.8 °F) was recorded in Hopetoun on 7 February 2009, during the 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave. The Victorian Alps in the northeast are the coldest part of Victoria. The Alps are part of the Great Dividing Range mountain system extending east–west through the centre of Victoria. Average temperatures are less than 9 °C (48 °F) in winter and below 0 °C (32 °F) in the highest parts of the ranges. The state's lowest minimum temperature of −11.7 °C (10.9 °F) was recorded at Omeo on 15 June 1965, and again at Falls Creek on 3 July 1970. Temperature extremes for the state are listed in the table below: Rainfall Rainfall in Victoria increases from south to the northeast, with higher averages in areas of high altitude. Mean annual rainfall exceeds 1,800 millimetres (71 inches) in some parts of the northeast but is less than 280 mm (11 in) in the Mallee. Rain is heaviest in the Otway Ranges and Gippsland in southern Victoria and in the mountainous northeast. Snow generally falls only in the mountains and hills in the centre of the state. Rain falls most frequently in winter, but summer precipitation is heavier. Rainfall is most reliable in Gippsland and the Western District, making them both leading farming areas. Victoria's highest recorded daily rainfall was 377.8 mm (14.87 in) at Tidal River in Wilsons Promontory National Park on 23 March 2011. Average temperatures and precipitation for Victoria Demographics At March 2024 Victoria had a population of 6,959,200. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that the population may well reach 10.3 million by 2051. Victoria's founding Anglo-Celtic population has been supplemented by successive waves of migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia and, most recently, Africa and the Middle East. Victoria's population is ageing in proportion with the average of the remainder of the Australian population. About 72% of Victorians are Australian-born. This figure falls to around 66% in Melbourne but rises to higher than 95% in some rural areas in the north west of the state. Less than 1% of Victorians identify themselves as Aboriginal. More than 75% of Victorians live in Melbourne, located in the state's south. The greater Melbourne metropolitan area is home to an estimated 5,207,145 people. Urban centres outside Melbourne include Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Mildura, Warrnambool, Wodonga and the Latrobe Valley. Victoria is Australia's most urbanised state: nearly 90% of residents living in cities and towns. State Government efforts to decentralise population have included an official campaign run since 2003 to encourage Victorians to settle in regional areas, however Melbourne continues to rapidly outpace these areas in terms of population growth. Ancestry and immigration At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 0.8% of the population, or 47,788 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. At the 2016 census, 64.9% of residents were born in Australia. The other most common countries of birth were England (2.9%), India (2.9%), Mainland China (2.7%), New Zealand (1.6%) and Vietnam (1.4%). Language As of the 2016 census, 72.2% of Victorians speak English at home. Speakers of other languages include Mandarin (3.2%), Italian (1.9%), Greek (1.9%), Vietnamese (1.7%), and Arabic (1.3%). Religion In the 2016 Census, 47.9% of Victorians described themselves as Christian, 10.6% stated that they followed other religions and 32.1% stated that they had no religion or held secular or other spiritual beliefs. In the survey, 31.7% of Victorians stated they had no religion, Roman Catholics were 23.2%, 9.4% did not answer the question, 9% were Anglican and 3.5% were Eastern Orthodox. In 2017 the proportion of couples marrying in a civil ceremony in Victoria was 77.3%; the other 22.7% were married in a religious ceremony. Age structure and fertility The government predicts that nearly a quarter of Victorians will be aged over 60 by 2021. The 2016 census revealed that Australian median age has crept upward from 35 to 37 since 2001, which reflects the population growth peak of 1969–72. In 2017, Victoria recorded a TFR of 1.724. Average demographic The "average Victorian" according to the demographic statistics may be described as follows: Crime In the year ending September 2020, the statistics were skewed by the introduction of six new public safety offences relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Total offences numbered 551,710, with 32,713 of these being breaches of Chief Health Officer Directions. The total offences occurred at a rate of 8,227 per 100,000 people, up 4.4% on the previous year. While there have been some dips along the way, the rate of recorded offences have increased year on year since 2011, when the figure was 6,937.7 offences per 100,000 people. Government Parliament Victoria has a parliamentary form of government based on the Westminster System. Legislative power resides in the Parliament consisting of the Governor (the representative of the King), the executive (the Government), and two legislative chambers. The Parliament of Victoria consists of the lower house Legislative Assembly, the upper house Legislative Council and the monarch. Eighty-eight members of the Legislative Assembly are elected to four-year terms from single-member electorates. In November 2006, the Victorian Legislative Council elections were held under a new multi-member proportional representation system. The State of Victoria was divided into eight electorates with each electorate represented by five representatives elected by Single Transferable Vote. The total number of upper house members was reduced from 44 to 40 and their term of office is now the same as the lower house members—four years. Elections for the Victorian Parliament are now fixed and occur in November every four years. Prior to the 2006 election, the Legislative Council consisted of 44 members elected to eight-year terms from 22 two-member electorates. Premier and cabinet The Premier of Victoria is the leader of the political party or coalition with the most seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Premier is the public face of government and, with cabinet, sets the legislative and political agenda. Cabinet consists of representatives elected to either house of parliament. It is responsible for managing areas of government that are not exclusively vested in the Commonwealth, by the Australian Constitution, such as education, health and law enforcement. The current Premier of Victoria is Jacinta Allan. Governor Executive authority is vested in the Governor of Victoria who represents and is appointed by the monarch. The post is usually filled by a retired prominent Victorian. The governor acts on the advice of the premier and cabinet. The current Governor of Victoria is Margaret Gardner. Constitution Victoria has a written constitution enacted in 1975, but based on the 1855 colonial constitution, passed by the United Kingdom Parliament as the Victoria Constitution Act 1855, which establishes the Parliament as the state's law-making body for matters coming under state responsibility. The Victorian Constitution can be amended by the Parliament of Victoria, except for certain "entrenched" provisions that require either an absolute majority in both houses, a three-fifths majority in both houses, or the approval of the Victorian people in a referendum, depending on the provision. To this day, not a single referendum has been held to change the Victorian Constitution. Politics Victoria is considered by some analysts to be the most progressive state in the nation. The state recorded the highest Yes votes of any state in the republic referendum and same-sex marriage survey. Victorians are said to be "generally socially progressive, supportive of multiculturalism, wary of extremes of any kind". Premier Jacinta Allan leads the Victorian Labor Party who replaced Daniel Andrews after his resignation in September 2023. Labor has been in power since the November 2014 Victorian state election. The centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP), the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, the rural-based National Party of Australia, and the left-wing environmentalist Australian Greens are Victoria's main political parties. Traditionally, Labor is strongest in Melbourne's working and middle class western, northern and inner-city suburbs, and the regional cities of Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong. The Liberals' main support lies in Melbourne's more affluent eastern suburbs and outer suburbs, and some rural and regional centres. The Nationals are strongest in Victoria's North Western and Eastern rural regional areas. The Greens, who won their first lower house seats in 2014, are strongest in inner Melbourne. Federal government Victorian voters elect 50 representatives to the Parliament of Australia, including 38 members of the House of Representatives and 12 members of the Senate. Since 1 April 2023, the ALP hold 25 Victorian house seats, the Liberals 10, the Nationals three, the Greens one, and independents the remaining three. The ALP and the Liberals hold four senate seats each, while the Nationals, Greens, UAP and an independent hold one seat each. Local government Victoria is incorporated into 79 municipalities for the purposes of local government, including 39 shires, 32 cities, seven rural cities and one borough. Shire and city councils are responsible for functions delegated by the Victorian parliament, such as city planning, road infrastructure and waste management. Council revenue comes mostly from property taxes and government grants. Education Primary and secondary Victoria's state school system dates back to 1872, when the colonial government legislated to make schooling both free and compulsory. The state's public secondary school system began in 1905. Before then, only private secondary schooling was available. Today, a Victorian school education consists of seven years of primary schooling (including one preparatory year) and six years of secondary schooling. The final years of secondary school are optional for children aged over 17. Victorian children generally begin school at age five or six. On completing secondary school, students earn the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) or Victorian Certificate of Education - Vocational Major (VCE-VM). Students who successfully complete their VCE (not including VCE-VM students) also receive an ATAR, to determine university admittance (unless the student is 'going unscored'. Victorian schools are either publicly or privately funded. Public schools, also known as state or government schools, are funded and run directly by the Victoria Department of Education Department of Education and Training Victoria. Students do not pay tuition fees, but some extra costs are levied. Private fee-paying schools include parish schools run by the Roman Catholic Church and independent schools similar to British public schools. Independent schools are usually affiliated with Protestant churches. Victoria also has several private Jewish and Islamic primary and secondary schools. Private schools also receive some public funding. All schools must comply with government-set curriculum standards. In addition, Victoria has six government selective schools, Melbourne High School for boys, MacRobertson Girls' High School for girls, the coeducational schools John Monash Science School, Nossal High School and Suzanne Cory High School, and the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School. Students at these schools are exclusively admitted on the basis of an academic selective entry test. Victoria also offers an online schooling system, called Virtual School Victoria, or VSV. As of February 2019, Victoria had 1,529 public schools, 496 Catholic schools and 219 independent schools. Just under 631,500 students were enrolled in public schools, and just over 357,000 in private schools. Over 58 per cent of private students attend Catholic schools. More than 552,300 students were enrolled in primary schools and more than 418,600 in secondary schools. Retention rates for the final two years of secondary school were 84.3 per cent for public school students and 91.5 per cent for private school students. Victoria has about 46,523 full-time teachers. Tertiary education Victoria has nine universities. The first to offer degrees, the University of Melbourne, enrolled its first student in 1855. The largest, Monash University, has an enrolment of over 83,000 students—more than any other Australian university. The number of students enrolled in Victorian universities was 418,447 in 2018, an increase of 5.3% on the previous year. International students made up 40% of enrolments and account for the highest percentage of pre-paid university tuition fees. The largest number of enrolments were recorded in the fields of business, administration and economics, with nearly 30% of all students, followed by arts, humanities, and social science, with 18% of enrolments. Victoria has 12 government-run institutions of technical and further education (TAFE). The first vocational institution in the state was the Melbourne Mechanics' Institute (established in 1839), which is now the Melbourne Athenaeum. More than 1,000 adult education organisations are registered to provide recognised TAFE programs. In 2014, there were 443,000 students enrolled in vocational education in the state. By 2018, the number of students in the sector had dropped by 40 per cent to 265,000—a five-year low which the education department attributed to withdrawal of funding to low-quality providers and a societal shift to university education. Libraries The State Library Victoria is the State's research and reference library. It is responsible for collecting and preserving Victoria's documentary heritage and making it available through a range of services and programs. Material in the collection includes books, newspapers, magazines, journals, manuscripts, maps, pictures, objects, sound and video recordings and databases. The state has public libraries in most LGAs (typically with multiple branches in their respective municipal areas) and academic libraries in universities, and some special libraries. Economy The state of Victoria is the second largest economy in Australia after New South Wales, accounting for a quarter of the nation's gross domestic product. The total gross state product (GSP) at current prices for Victoria was A$459 billion in June 2020, with a GSP per capita of A$68,996. Agriculture Victoria is Australia's second-largest agricultural producer in gross value of production, representing about 25 percent of Australia's total food production. There are 67,600 people employed in the agricultural industry, making it the 6th largest employer in the state. There are about 21,600 farms in the state, managing more than 11.4 million hectares or 50% of the state's total landmass, of which 40% was used for cropping and 50% for grazing. Victorian farms produce nearly 90% of Australian pears and a third of apples. The main vegetable crops include asparagus, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. More than 14 million sheep and 5 million lambs graze over 10% of Victorian farms, mostly in the state's north and west. Pgt standard race 126 was the most common Stem Rust (Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici) race here from 1929 to 1941, as it was for the whole of Australia. First detected on Tasmania in 1954, standard race 21 was the most common race by the next year in this state, the southern part of NSW, and Tasmania. Leaf Rust (P. triticina) is known to have been present here, and throughout the continent, at least since European colonization. P. triticina pathotype 104-2,3,(6),(7),11 was first found here in 1984 and has contributed to populations ever since. It is considered to be foreign to Australia due to a difference in pathogenicity and due to its unique Pgm2 c allele. Victorian farms produce nearly 90% of Australian pears and a third of apples. It is also a leader in stone fruit (Prunus) production. The main vegetable crops include asparagus, broccoli, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Last year, 121,200 metric tons (133,600 short tons) of pears and 270,000 metric tons (300,000 short tons) of tomatoes were produced. More than 14 million sheep and 5 million lambs graze over 10% of Victorian farms, mostly in the state's north and west. In 2004, nearly 10 million lambs and sheep were slaughtered for local consumption and export. Victoria also exports live sheep to the Middle East for meat and to the rest of the world for breeding. More than 108,000 metric tons (119,000 short tons) of wool clip was also produced—one-fifth of the Australian total. Victoria is the centre of dairy farming in Australia. It is home to 60% of Australia's 3 million dairy cattle and produces nearly two-thirds of the nation's milk, almost 6.4 billion litres (1.7 billion US gallons). The state also has 2.4 million beef cattle, with more than 2.2 million cattle and calves slaughtered each year. In 2003–04, Victorian commercial fishing crews and aquaculture industry produced 11,634 metric tons (12,824 short tons) of seafood valued at nearly A$109 million. Blacklipped abalone is the mainstay of the catch, bringing in A$46 million, followed by southern rock lobster worth A$13.7 million. Most abalone and rock lobster is exported to Asia. Most of Australia – including this state – imposed a moratorium on GM canola in 2003 to consider the positives and negatives. After consideration the ban here was lifted in 2008 and the state's produced a review of the effects of the moratorium and the expected economic and other effects of adoption or failure to adopt GM canola. The government finds a benefit of AUS$45 per hectare ($18/acre)/season over conventional. Late in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Australian agriculture was heavily impacted by the resulting supply chain issues. The scarcity of freight space and disruption to Chinese New Year purchases was particularly painful, with China being Australia's largest export market and a particularly large buyer of live seafood. As of 2022 there are almost 100 strawberry farms here, most close to Melbourne CBD in the Yarra Valley. They are represented by the Victorian Strawberries organization, who recommend varieties for production. Manufacturing Victoria has a diverse range of manufacturing enterprises and Melbourne is considered Australia's most important industrial city. The post-World War II manufacturing boom was fuelled by international investment, attracted to the state by the availability of cheap land close to the city and inexpensive energy from the Latrobe Valley. Victoria produced 26.4% of total manufacturing output in Australia in 2015–16, behind New South Wales at 32.4%. Machinery and equipment manufacturing is the state's most valuable manufacturing activity, followed by food and beverage products, petrochemicals and chemicals. Prominent manufacturing plants in the state include the Portland and Point Henry aluminium smelters, owned by Alcoa; Geelong and Altona oil refineries; a major petrochemical facility at Laverton; and Victorian-based CSL, a global biotechnology company that produces vaccines and plasma products, among others. Victoria also plays an important role in providing goods for the defence industry. Victoria proportionally relies on manufacturing more than any other state in Australia, constituting 8.6% of total state product; slightly higher than South Australia at 8.0%. However, this proportion has been declining for three decades; in 1990 at the time of the early 1990s recession manufacturing constituted 20.3% of total state output. Manufacturing output peaked in absolute terms in 2008, reaching $28.8 billion and has slowly fallen over the decade to $26.8 billion in 2016 (−0.77% per annum). Since 1990, manufacturing employment has also fallen in both aggregate (367,700 to 274,400 workers) and proportional (17.8% to 9.0%) terms. The strong Australian dollar as a result of the 2000s mining boom, small population and isolation, high wage base and the general shift of manufacturing production towards developing countries have been cited as some of the reasons for this decline. Historically, Victoria has been a hub for the manufacturing plants of the major car brands Ford, Toyota and Holden; however, closure announcements by all three companies in the 2010s has meant Australia will completely lose their car manufacturing industry by the end of 2017. Holden's announcement occurred in May 2013 following Ford's decision in December the previous year (Ford's Victorian plants, in Broadmeadows and Geelong, closed in October 2016). Toyota followed suit in February 2014 with an expected announcement as without Holden or Ford, local supply chains would struggle to create the economics of scale required to supply one manufacturer. Land Victoria adopted the Torrens system of land registration with the Real Property Act 1862. The Torrens system did not replace the common law system but applied only to new land grants and to land that has been voluntarily registered under the Act, and its successors. The common law system continues to apply to all other private landholdings. Crown land held in Victoria is managed under the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978 and the Land Act 1958. Mining Mining in Victoria contributes around A$6 billion to the gross state product (~2%) but employs less than 1% of workers. The Victorian mining industry is concentrated on energy producing minerals, with brown coal, petroleum and gas accounting for nearly 90% of local production. The oil and gas industries are centred off the coast of Gippsland in the state's east, while brown coal mining and power generation is based in the Latrobe Valley. In 1985, oil production from the offshore Gippsland Basin peaked to an annual average of 450,000 barrels (72,000 m3) per day. In 2005–2006, the average daily oil production has declined to 83,000 bbl (13,200 m3)/d, but despite the decline Victoria still produces almost 19.5% of crude oil in Australia. In the 2005–06 fiscal year, the average gas production was over 700 million cubic feet (20,000,000 m3) per day (M cuft/d) and represented 18% of the total national gas sales, with demand growing at 2% per year. Campaigning resulted in a prohibition on onshore gas exploration and production in Victoria in 2014,. This was partially lifted in 2021 but the state retains a constitutional ban on fracking. Brown coal is Victoria's leading mineral, with 66 million tonnes mined each year for electricity generation in the Latrobe Valley, Gippsland. The region is home to the world's largest known reserves of brown coal. Despite being the historic centre of Australia's gold rush, Victoria today contributes a mere 1% of national gold production. Victoria also produces limited amounts of gypsum and kaolin. Victoria's gold production is mostly derived from the Fosterville and Stawell Gold Mines. Tourism Tourism is a significant industry in the state of Victoria, Australia. The country's second most-populous city, Melbourne was visited by 2.7 million international overnight visitors and 9.3 million domestic overnight visitors during the year ending December 2017. Named the world's most liveable city from 2011 to 2017, Melbourne's culture and lifestyle have been increasingly promoted internationally, leading to average year-on-year growth of international visitors of 10% in the five years to 2017. Some major tourist destinations in Victoria are: The metropolis of Melbourne, particular its inner city suburbs (known also for shopping tourism) and the attractions of the city centre such as Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne Museum, the Melbourne Aquarium and Scienceworks, tourism precincts such as Melbourne Docklands, Southbank and St Kilda as well as cultural and sporting tourist icons such as Arts Centre Melbourne, the East End Theatre District, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, also known as the MCG, and the Eureka Tower, with the highest observation deck in the Southern Hemisphere, Skydeck 88. Victoria has more than 2000 kilometres of coastline with hundreds of beaches. The Goldfields region featuring the historic cities of Ballarat, Beechworth, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maldon and Daylesford. Natural attractions, such as The Twelve Apostles, Wilsons Promontory, The Grampians, the fairy penguins (particularly at Phillip Island and St Kilda), the Buchan Caves and the Gippsland Lakes. The Dandenong Ranges (in particular the Puffing Billy Railway). Healesville Sanctuary, which specialises in local Australian species. Towns along the Murray River and Riverina including Echuca and Mildura including waterskiing. Geelong and its famous Waterfront, Eastern Beach and Geelong West's Pakington Street. The Bellarine Peninsula which features vineyards and historic resort towns such as Queenscliff, Drysdale and Portarlington. The Werribee Park Mansion and Werribee Open Range Zoo. The Surf Coast which features famous beaches such as Bells Beach, Torquay and Lorne Mornington Peninsula, particularly for its wineries in Red Hill and secluded beaches in Mount Eliza and Mornington, The Pillars in Mount Martha, Arthur's Seat and the coastal attractions of Portsea, Sorrento and Flinders. Yarra Valley (in particular Healesville Sanctuary and wineries). Great Ocean Road, which features The Twelve Apostles, historic towns of Port Fairy and Portland, cliffs and whale watching and resort towns such as Lorne. The Victorian Alpine Region, part of the Australian Alps, particularly for skiing. The Central Victorian Highlands, "High country" are very well known for winter sports and bushwalking. Wine regions across the entire state. Other popular tourism activities are gliding, hang-gliding, hot air ballooning and scuba diving. Major events that explore cultural diversity, music and sports play a big part in Victoria's tourism. The V8 Supercars and Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island, the Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool and the Australian International Airshow at Avalon and numerous local festivals such as the popular Port Fairy Folk Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival, Pako Festa in Geelong West, Bells Beach Surf Classic and the Bright Autumn Festival amongst others. Transport Victoria has the highest population density in any state in Australia, with population centres spread out over most of the state; only the far northwest and the Victorian Alps lack permanent settlement. As of October 2013, smoking tobacco is prohibited in the sheltered areas of train stations, and tram and bus stops, as is the use of e-cigarettes. Between 2012 and 2013, 2002 people were issued with infringement notices. The state government announced a plan in October 2013 to prohibit smoking on all Victorian railway station platforms and raised tram stops. The Victorian road network services the population centres, with highways generally radiating from Melbourne and other major cities and rural centres with secondary roads interconnecting the highways to each other. Many of the highways are built to freeway standard ("M" freeways), while most are generally sealed and of reasonable quality. Rail transport in Victoria is provided by several private and public railway operators who operate over government-owned lines. Major operators include: Metro Trains Melbourne which runs an extensive, electrified, passenger system throughout Melbourne and suburbs; V/Line which is now owned by the Victorian Government, operates a concentrated service to major regional centres, as well as long-distance services on other lines; Pacific National, CFCL Australia which operate freight services; Great Southern Rail which operates The Overland Melbourne—Adelaide; and NSW TrainLink which operates XPTs Melbourne—Sydney. There are also several smaller freight operators and numerous tourist railways operating over lines which were once parts of a state-owned system. Victorian lines mainly use the 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) broad gauge. However, the interstate trunk routes, as well as a number of freight lines in the north and west of the state have been converted to 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge. Two tourist railways operate over 760 mm (2 ft 6 in) narrow gauge lines, which are the remnants of five formerly government-owned lines which were built in mountainous areas. Melbourne has the world's largest tram network, currently operated by Yarra Trams. As well as being a popular form of public transport, over the last few decades trams have become one of Melbourne's major tourist attractions. There are also tourist trams operating over portions of the former Ballarat and Bendigo systems. There are also tramway museums at Bylands, Haddon and Hawthorn. Melbourne Airport is the major domestic and international gateway for the state. Avalon Airport is the state's second busiest airport, which complements Essendon and Moorabbin Airports to see the remainder of Melbourne's air traffic. Hamilton Airport, Mildura Airport, Mount Hotham and Portland Airport are the remaining airports with scheduled domestic flights. There are no fewer than 27 other airports in the state with no scheduled flights. The Port of Melbourne is the largest port for containerised and general cargo in Australia, and is located in Melbourne on the mouth of the Yarra River, which is at the head of Port Phillip. Additional seaports are at Westernport, Geelong, and Portland. Utilities Energy Victoria's major utilities include a collection of brown-coal-fired power stations, particularly in the Latrobe Valley. One of these was the recently decommissioned Hazelwood Power Station, which was number 1 on the worldwide List of least carbon efficient power stations. The Victorian government is aiming to cut 40.6 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Water Victoria's water infrastructure includes a series of dams and reservoirs, predominantly in Central Victoria, that hold and collect water for much of the state. The water collected is of a very high quality and requires little chlorination treatment, giving the water a taste more like water collected in a rainwater tank. In regional areas however, such as in the west of the state, chlorination levels are much higher. The Victorian Water Grid consists of a number of new connections and pipelines being built across the State. This allows water to be moved around Victoria to where it is needed most and reduces the impact of localised droughts in an era thought to be influenced by climate change. Major projects already completed as part of the Grid include the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline and the Goldfields Superpipe. Sport Victoria is the home of Australian rules football, with ten of the 18 Australian Football League (AFL) clubs based in the state. The AFL Grand Final is traditionally held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the last Saturday of September. The state has a public holiday the day before the Grand Final, which coincides with the AFL Grand Final parade. The MCG is sometimes called he spiritual home of Australian rules football. The Victorian cricket team play in the national Sheffield Shield cricket competition. Victoria is represented in the National Rugby League by the Melbourne Storm and in Super Rugby by the Melbourne Rebels. It is represented in the National Basketball League by Melbourne United and South East Melbourne Phoenix. It is also represented in soccer by Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City and Western United in the A-League. Melbourne has held the 1956 Summer Olympics, 2006 Commonwealth Games and the FINA World Swimming Championship. Melbourne is also home to the Australian Open tennis tournament in January each year, which is the first of the world's four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, as well as the Formula One Australian Grand Prix, which is, on an annual basis, usually held in March or April. It hosted the Australian Masters golf tournament from 1979 to 2015. Victoria's Bells Beach hosts one of the world's longest-running surfing competition, the Bells Beach SurfClassic, which is part of The ASP World Tour. The Melbourne Vixens and Collingwood Magpies Netball represent Victoria in the National Netball League. Victoria's Phillip Island is home of the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit which hosts the Australian motorcycle Grand Prix which features MotoGP (the world's premier motorcycling class), as well as the Australian round of the World Superbike Championship and the domestic V8 Supercar racing, which also visits Sandown Raceway and the rural Winton Motor Raceway circuit. Australia's most prestigious footrace, the Stawell Gift, is an annual event. Victoria is also home to the Aussie Millions poker tournament, the tournament with the highest potential proceeds in the Southern Hemisphere. The main horse racing tracks in Victoria are Caulfield Racecourse, Flemington Racecourse and Sandown Racecourse. The Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival is one of the biggest horse racing events in the world and is one of the world's largest sporting events. The main race is for the $6 million Melbourne Cup, and crowds for the carnival usually exceed 700,000. Victoria was due to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games but withdrew on 18 July 2023 as a result of increased costs of holding the event. Major professional teams include: Australian rules football (AFL): Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong Cats, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs Basketball (NBL): Melbourne United, South East Melbourne Phoenix Cricket (BBL): Melbourne Renegades, Melbourne Stars Cricket (Sheffield Shield and Marsh One-Day Cup): Victoria cricket team Netball (NNL): Melbourne Vixens, Collingwood Magpies Rugby league (NRL): Melbourne Storm Rugby union (Super Rugby): Melbourne Rebels Soccer (A-League): Melbourne City, Melbourne Victory, Western United Sister states Victoria has four sister states: Jiangsu, China (1979) Aichi Prefecture, Japan (1980) Busan, South Korea (1994) Sichuan, China (2016) See also Geography of Victoria List of highways in Victoria Outline of Victoria Protected areas of Victoria Vicmap Topographic Map Series List of places in Victoria by population Notes References Further reading Victorian frontier history Jan Critchett (1990), A distant field of murder: Western district frontiers, 1834–1848, Melbourne University Press (Carlton, Vic. and Portland, Or.) ISBN 0522843891. Ian D Clark (1990), Aboriginal languages and clans: An historical atlas of western and central Victoria, 1800–1900, Dept. of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University (Melbourne), ISBN 0-909685-41-X. Ian D Clark (1995), Scars in the landscape: A register of massacre sites in western Victoria, 1803–1859, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Canberra), ISBN 0-85575-281-5. Ian D Clark (2003), "That's my country belonging to me": Aboriginal land tenure and dispossession in nineteenth century Western Victoria, Ballarat Heritage Services, Ballarat. External links Government Official website of the Victorian Government Parliament of Victoria Public Record Office Victoria Victorian Heritage Database Travel Official website of Tourism Victoria Victorian Places website Tourism Victoria's Online Image Library General information Victoria at Curlie Geographic data related to Victoria (state) at OpenStreetMap

Tasmania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania

Tasmania (; palawa kani: lutruwita) is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres (150 miles) to the south of the Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 1000 islands. It is Australia's smallest and least populous state, with 573,479 residents as of June 2023. The state capital and largest city is Hobart, with around 40% of the population living in the Greater Hobart area. Tasmania is the most decentralised state in Australia, with the lowest proportion of its residents living within its capital city. Tasmania's main island was inhabited by Aboriginal peoples. It is thought that Aboriginal Tasmanians became separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 11,700 years ago, after rising sea levels formed Bass Strait. The island was permanently settled by Europeans in 1803 as a penal settlement of the British Empire to prevent claims to the land by the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of British settlement, but was almost wiped out within 30 years during a period of conflicts with settlers known as the "Black War" and the spread of infectious diseases. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of almost 1,100 Aboriginal people and settlers. Under British rule, the island was initially part of the Colony of New South Wales; however, it became a separate colony under the name Van Diemen's Land (named after Anthony van Diemen) in 1825. Approximately 80,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land before this practice, known as transportation, ceased in 1853. In 1855, the present Constitution of Tasmania was enacted, and the following year the colony formally changed its name to Tasmania. In 1901, it became a state of Australia through the process of the federation of Australia. Today, Tasmania has the second smallest economy of the Australian states and territories, and comprises principally tourism, agriculture, aquaculture, education, and healthcare. Tasmania is a significant agricultural exporter, as well as a significant destination for eco-tourism. About 42% of its land area, including national parks and World Heritage Sites (21%), is protected in some form of reserve. The first environmental political party in the world was founded in Tasmania. Toponymy Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. The name was later shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856. Tasmania was sometimes referred to as "Dervon", as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is "Tassie". Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to "Tas", mainly when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state. In the constructed palawa kani language, the main island of Tasmania is called lutruwita, a name originally derived from the Bruny Island Tasmanian language. George Augustus Robinson recorded it as Loe.trou.witter and also as Trow.wer.nar, probably from one or more of the eastern or Northeastern Tasmanian languages. However, he also recorded it as a name for Cape Barren Island. In the 20th century, some writers used it as an Aboriginal name for Tasmania, spelled "Trowenna" or "Trowunna". It is now believed that the name is more properly applied to Cape Barren Island, which has had an official dual name of "Truwana" since 2014. A number of palawa kani names, based on historical records of aboriginal names, have been accepted by the Tasmanian government. A dozen of these (below) are 'dual-use' (bilingual) names, and another two are unbounded areas with only palawa names. Bilingual names Palawa names larapuna: an unbounded area centred on the Bay of Fires Narawntapu National Park (formerly Asbestos Range National Park) putalina: an unbounded area centred on Oyster Cove (including the community of Oyster Cove) There are also a number of archaeological sites with Palawa names. Some of these names have been contentious, with names being proposed without consultation with the aboriginal community, or without having a connection to the place in question. As well as a diverse First Nations geography, where remnants are preserved in rough form by European documentation, Tasmania is known as a place for unorthodox place-names. These names often come about from lost definitions, where descriptive names have lost their old meanings and have taken on new modern interpretations (e.g. 'Bobs Knobs'). Other names have retained their original meaning, and are often quaint or endearing descriptions (e.g. 'Paradise'). History Physical history The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 11,700 years ago. Much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions (the upwelling of magma) through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the world's largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains and cliffs formed from this rock type. The central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerites. Mount Wellington above Hobart is a good example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes. In the southern midlands as far south as Hobart, the dolerite is underlaid by sandstone and similar sedimentary stones. In the southwest, Precambrian quartzites were formed from very ancient sea sediments and form strikingly sharp ridges and ranges, such as Federation Peak or Frenchmans Cap. In the northeast and east, continental granites can be seen, such as at Freycinet, similar to coastal granites on mainland Australia. In the northwest and west, mineral-rich volcanic rock can be seen at Mount Read near Rosebery, or at Mount Lyell near Queenstown. Also present in the south and northwest is limestone with caves. The quartzite and dolerite areas in the higher mountains show evidence of glaciation, and much of Australia's glaciated landscape is found on the Central Plateau and the Southwest. Cradle Mountain, another dolerite peak, for example, was a nunatak. The combination of these different rock types contributes to scenery which is distinct from any other region of the world. In the far southwest corner of the state, the geology is almost wholly quartzite, which gives the mountains the false impression of having snow-capped peaks year round. Aboriginal people Evidence indicates the presence of Aboriginal people in Tasmania about 42,000 years ago. Rising sea levels cut Tasmania off from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago and by the time of European contact, the Aboriginal people in Tasmania had nine major nations or ethnic groups. At the time of the British occupation and colonisation in 1803, the indigenous population was estimated at between 3,000 and 10,000. Historian Lyndall Ryan's analysis of population studies led her to conclude that there were about 7,000 spread throughout the island's nine nations; Nicholas Clements, citing research by N.J.B. Plomley and Rhys Jones, settled on a figure of 3,000 to 4,000. They engaged in fire-stick farming, hunted game including kangaroo and wallabies, caught seals, mutton-birds, shellfish and fish and lived as nine separate "nations" on the island, which they knew as "Trouwunna". European arrival and governance The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European was on 24 November 1642 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who landed at today's Blackman Bay. More than a century later, in 1772, a French expedition led by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne landed at (nearby but different) Blackmans Bay, and the following year Tobias Furneaux became the first Englishman to land in Tasmania when he arrived at Adventure Bay, which he named after his ship HMS Adventure. Captain James Cook also landed at Adventure Bay in 1777. Matthew Flinders and George Bass sailed through Bass Strait in 1798–1799, determining for the first time that Tasmania was an island. Sealers and whalers based themselves on Tasmania's islands from 1798, and in August 1803 New South Wales Governor Philip King sent Lieutenant John Bowen to establish a small military outpost on the eastern shore of the Derwent River in order to forestall any claims to the island by French explorers who had been exploring the southern Australian coastline. Bowen, who led a party of 49, including 21 male and three female convicts, named the camp Risdon. Several months later, a second settlement was established by Captain David Collins, with 308 convicts, 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) to the south in Sullivans Cove on the western side of the Derwent, where fresh water was more plentiful. The latter settlement became known as Hobart Town or Hobarton, later shortened to Hobart, after the British Colonial Secretary of the time, Lord Hobart. The settlement at Risdon was later abandoned. Left on their own without further supplies, the Sullivans Cove settlement suffered severe food shortages and by 1806 its inhabitants were starving, with many resorting to scraping seaweed off rocks and scavenging washed-up whale blubber from the shore to survive. A smaller colony was established at Port Dalrymple on the Tamar River in the island's north in October 1804 and several other convict-based settlements were established, including the particularly harsh penal colonies at Port Arthur in the southeast and Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast. Tasmania was eventually sent 75,000 convicts—four out of every ten people transported to Australia. By 1819, the Aboriginal and British population reached parity with about 5000 of each, although among the colonists men outnumbered women four-to-one. Free settlers began arriving in large numbers from 1820, lured by the promise of land grants and free convict labour. Settlement in the island's northwest corner was monopolised by the Van Diemen's Land Company, which sent its first surveyors to the district in 1826. By 1830, one-third of Australia's non-Indigenous population lived in Van Diemen's Land and the island accounted for about half of all land under cultivation and exports. Black War Tensions between Tasmania's Aboriginal and white inhabitants rose, partly driven by increasing competition for kangaroo and other game. Explorer and naval officer John Oxley in 1810 noted the "many atrocious cruelties" inflicted on Aboriginal people by convict bushrangers in the north, which in turn led to black attacks on solitary white hunters. Hostilities increased further with the arrival of 600 colonists from Norfolk Island between 1807 and 1813. They established farms along the River Derwent and east and west of Launceston, occupying ten percent of Van Diemen's Land. By 1824 the colonial population had swelled to 12,600, while the island's sheep population had reached 200,000. The rapid colonisation transformed traditional kangaroo hunting grounds into farms with grazing livestock as well as fences, hedges and stone walls, while police and military patrols were increased to control the convict farm labourers. Violence began to spiral rapidly from the mid-1820s in what became described as the "Black War". Aboriginal inhabitants were driven to desperation by hunger – that included a desire for agricultural produce, as well as feeling anger at the prevalence of abductions of women and girls. New settlers motivated by fear carried out self-defence operations as well as attacks as a means of suppressing the native threat – or even in some cases, exacting revenge. Van Diemen's Land had an enormous gender imbalance, with male colonists outnumbering females six to one in 1822—and 16 to one among the convict population. Historian Nicholas Clements has suggested the "voracious appetite" for native women was the most important trigger for the explosion of violence from the late 1820s. From 1825 to 1828, the number of native attacks more than doubled each year, raising panic among settlers. Over the summer of 1826–1827 clans from the Big River, Oyster Bay and North Midlands nations speared stock-keepers on farms and made it clear that they wanted the settlers and their sheep and cattle to move from their kangaroo hunting grounds. Settlers responded vigorously, resulting in many mass-killings. In November 1826, Governor Sir George Arthur issued a government notice declaring that colonists were free to kill Aboriginal people when they attacked settlers or their property, and in the following eight months more than 200 Aboriginal people were killed in the Settled Districts in reprisal for the deaths of 15 colonists. After another eight months, the death toll had risen to 43 colonists and probably 350 Aboriginal people. In April 1828, Arthur issued a Proclamation of Demarcation forbidding Aboriginal people to enter the settled districts without a passport issued by the government. Arthur declared martial law in the colony in November that year, and this remained in force for over three years, the longest period of martial law in Australian history. In November 1830, Arthur organised the so-called "Black Line", ordering every able-bodied male colonist to assemble at one of seven designated places in the Settled Districts to join a massive drive to sweep Aboriginal people out of the region and on to the Tasman Peninsula. The campaign failed and was abandoned seven weeks later, but by then Tasmania's Aboriginal population had fallen to about 300. Removal of Aboriginal people After hostilities between settlers and Aboriginal peoples ceased in 1832, almost all of the remnants of the Indigenous population were persuaded by government agent George Augustus Robinson to move to Flinders Island. Many quickly succumbed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, reducing the population further. Of those removed from Tasmania, the last to die was Truganini, in 1876. The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including Robert Hughes, James Boyce, Lyndall Ryan and Tom Lawson. However, other historians including Henry Reynolds, Richard Broome and Nicholas Clements do not agree with the genocide thesis, arguing that the colonial authorities did not intend to destroy the Aboriginal population in whole or in part. Boyce has claimed that the April 1828 "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants" sanctioned force against Aboriginal people "for no other reason than that they were Aboriginal". However, as Reynolds, Broome and Clements point out, there was open warfare at the time. Boyce described the decision to remove all Tasmanian Aboriginal people after 1832—by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists—as an extreme policy position. He concluded: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 ethnically cleansed the western half of Van Diemen's Land." Nevertheless, Clements and Flood note that there was another wave of violence in north-west Tasmania in 1841, involving attacks on settlers' huts by a band of Aboriginal Tasmanians who had not been removed from the island. Proclamation as a colony Van Diemen's Land—which thus far had existed as a territory within the colony of New South Wales—was proclaimed a separate colony, with its own judicial establishment and Legislative Council, on 3 December 1825. Transportation to the island ceased in 1853 and the colony was renamed Tasmania in 1856, partly to differentiate the burgeoning society of free settlers from the island's convict past. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which gained Royal Assent in 1855. The Privy Council also approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856 the newly elected bicameral parliament sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. The colony suffered from economic fluctuations, but for the most part was prosperous, experiencing steady growth. With few external threats and strong trade links with the Empire, Tasmania enjoyed many fruitful periods in the late 19th century, becoming a world-centre of shipbuilding. It raised a local defence force that eventually played a significant role in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and Tasmanian soldiers in that conflict won the first two Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians. Federation In 1901, the Colony of Tasmania united with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Tasmanians voted in favour of federation with the largest majority of all the Australian colonies. 20th and 21st century Tasmania was an early adopter of electric street lighting. Australia's first electric street lights were switched on in Waratah in 1886. Launceston became the first completely electrified city on the island in 1885, followed closely by the township of Zeehan in 1900. The state economy was riding mining prosperity until World War I. In 1901, the state population was 172,475. The 1910 foundation of what would become Hydro Tasmania began to shape urban patterns, as well as future major damming programs. Hydro's influence culminated in the 1970s when the state government announced plans to flood environmentally significant Lake Pedder. As a result of the eventual flooding of Lake Pedder, the world's first green party was established; the United Tasmania Group. National and international attention surrounded the campaign against the Franklin Dam in the early 1980s. Tasmanian Enid Lyons became the first female member of the House of Representatives at the 1943 federal election and first female to serve in the federal cabinet. In May 1948, Margaret McIntyre achieved another milestone as the first female elected to the Parliament of Tasmania. Less than six months after her election, McIntyre died in the crash of the Lutana near Quirindi on 2 September 1948. After the end of World War II, the state saw major urbanisation, and the growth of towns like Ulverstone. It gained a reputation as "Sanitorium of the South" and a health-focused tourist boom began to grow. The MS Princess of Tasmania began her maiden voyage in 1959, the first car ferry to Tasmania. As part of the boom, Tasmania allowed the opening of the first casino in Australia in 1968. Queen Elizabeth II visited the state in 1954, and the 50s and 60s were charactered by the opening of major public services, including the Tasmanian Housing Department and Metro Tasmania public bus services. A jail was opened at Risdon in 1960, and the State Library of Tasmania the same year. The University of Tasmania also moved to its present location in 1963. The state was badly affected by the 1967 Tasmanian fires, killing 64 people and destroying over 652,000 acres in five hours. In 1975 the Tasman Bridge collapsed when the bridge was struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra. It was the only bridge in Hobart, and made crossing the Derwent River by road at the city impossible. The nearest bridge was approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the north, at Bridgewater. Throughout the 1980s, strong environmental concerns saw the building of the Australian Antarctic Division headquarters, and the proclamation of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Franklin Dam was blocked by the federal government in 1983, and CSIRO opened its marine studies centre in Hobart. Pope John Paul II would hold mass at Elwick Racecourse in 1986. The 1990s were characterised by the fight for LGBT rights in Tasmania, culminating in the intervention of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1997 and the decriminalization of homosexuality that year. Christine Milne became the first female leader of a Tasmanian political party in 1993, and major council amalgamations reduce the number of councils from 46 to 29. Following the Port Arthur massacre on 28 April 1996, which resulted in the loss of 35 lives and injured 21 others, the Australian Government conducted a review of its firearms policies and enacted new nationwide gun ownership laws under the National Firearms Agreement. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth II once again visited the state. Gunns rose to prominence as a major forestry company during this decade, only to collapse in 2013. In 2004, Premier Jim Bacon died in office from lung cancer. In January 2011 philanthropist David Walsh opened the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart to international acclaim. Within 12 months, MONA became Tasmania's top tourism attraction. The COVID-19 pandemic in Tasmania resulted in at least 230 cases and 13 deaths as of September 2021. In 2020, after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) and its spread to Australia, the Tasmanian government issued a public health emergency on 17 March, the following month receiving the state's most significant outbreak from the North-West which required assistance from the Federal government. In late 2021, Tasmania was leading the nationwide vaccination response. Geography Tasmania, the largest island of Australia, has a landmass of 68,401 km2 (26,410 sq mi) and is located directly in the pathway of the notorious "Roaring Forties" wind that encircles the globe. To its north, it is separated from mainland Australia by Bass Strait. Tasmania is the only Australian state that is not located on the Australian mainland. About 2,500 kilometres (1,300 nautical miles) south of Tasmania island lies the George V Coast of Antarctica. Depending on which borders of the oceans are used, the island can be said to be either surrounded by the Southern Ocean, or to have the Pacific on its east and the Indian to its west. Still other definitions of the ocean boundaries would have Tasmania with the Great Australian Bight to the west, and the Tasman Sea to the east. The southernmost point on mainland Tasmania is approximately 43°38′37″S 146°49′38″E at South East Cape, and the northernmost point on mainland Tasmania is approximately 40°38′26″S 144°43′33″E in Woolnorth / Temdudheker near Cape Grim / Kennaook. Tasmania lies at similar latitudes to Te Waipounamu / South Island of New Zealand and parts of Patagonia in South America. Areas at equivalent latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere include Hokkaido in Japan, Northeast China (Manchuria), Central Italy, and United States cities such as New York and Chicago. The most mountainous region is the Central Highlands area, which covers most of the central western parts of the state. The Midlands located in the central east, is fairly flat, and is predominantly used for agriculture, although farming activity is scattered throughout the state. Tasmania's tallest mountain is Mount Ossa at 1,617 m (5,305 ft). Much of Tasmania is still densely forested, with the Southwest National Park and neighbouring areas holding some of the last temperate rain forests in the Southern Hemisphere. The Tarkine, containing Savage River National Park located in the island's far north west, is the largest temperate rainforest area in Australia covering about 3,800 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi). With its rugged topography, Tasmania has a great number of rivers. Several of Tasmania's largest rivers have been dammed at some point to provide hydroelectricity. Many rivers begin in the Central Highlands and flow out to the coast. Tasmania's major population centres are mainly situated around estuaries (some of which are named rivers). Tasmania is in the shape of a downward-facing triangle, likened to a shield, heart, or face. It consists of the main island as well as at least a thousand neighbouring islands within the state's jurisdiction. The largest of these are Flinders Island in the Furneaux Group of Bass Strait, King Island in the west of Bass Strait, Cape Barren Island south of Flinders Island, Bruny Island separated from Tasmania by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, Macquarie Island 1,500 km from Tasmania, and Maria Island off the east coast. Tasmania features a number of separated and continuous mountain ranges. The majority of the state is defined by a significant dolerite exposure, though the western half of the state is older and more rugged, featuring buttongrass plains, temperate rainforests, and quartzite ranges, notably Federation Peak and Frenchmans Cap. The presence of these mountain ranges is a primary factor in the rain shadow effect, where the western half receives the majority of rainfall, which also influences the types of vegetation that can grow. The Central Highlands feature a large plateau which forms a number of ranges and escarpments on its north side, tapering off along the south, and radiating into the highest mountain ranges in the west. At the north-west of this, another plateau radiates into a system of hills where takayna / Tarkine is located. The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides Tasmania into 9 bioregions: Ben Lomond, Furneaux, King, Central Highlands, Northern Midlands, Northern Slopes, Southern Ranges, South East, and West. Tasmania's environment consistes of many different biomes or communities across its different regions. It is the most forested state in Australia, and preserves the country's largest areas of temperate rainforest. A distinctive type of moorland found across the west, and particularly south-west of Tasmania, are buttongrass plains, which are speculated to have been expanded by Tasmanian Aboriginal burning practices. Tasmania also features a diverse alpine garden environment, such as cushion plant. Highland areas receive consistent snowfall above ~1,000 metres every year, and due to cold air from Antarctica, this level often reaches 800 m, and more occasionally 600 or 400 metres. Every five or so years, snow can form at sea level. This environment gives rise to the cypress forests of the Central Plateau and mountainous highlands. In particular, the Walls of Jerusalem with large areas of rare pencil pine, and its closest relative King Billy pine. On the West Coast Range and partially on Mount Field, Australia's only winter-deciduous plant, deciduous beech is found, which forms a carpet or krummholz, or very rarely a 4-metre tree. Tasmania features a high concentration of waterfalls. These can be found in small creeks, alpine streams, rapid rivers, or off precipitous plunges. Some of the tallest waterfalls are found on mountain massifs, sometimes at a 200-metre cascade. The most famous and most visited waterfall in Tasmania is Russell Falls in Mount Field due to its proximity to Hobart and stepped falls at a total height of 58 metres. Tasmania also has a large number of beaches, the longest of which is Ocean Beach on the West Coast at about 40 kilometres. Wineglass Bay in Freycinet on the east coast is a well-known landmark of the state. The Tasmanian temperate rainforests cover a few different types. These are also considered distinct from the more common wet sclerophyll forests, though these eucalypt forests often form with rainforest understorey and ferns (such as tree-ferns) are usually never absent. Rainforest found in deep gullies are usually difficult to traverse due to dense understorey growth, such as from horizontal (Anodopetalum biglandulosum). Higher-elevation forests (~500 to 800 m) have smaller ground vegetation and are thus easier to walk in. The most common rainforests usually have a 50-metre canopy and are varied by environmental factors. Emergent growth usually comes from eucalyptus, which can tower another 50 metres higher (usually less), providing the most common choice of nesting for giant wedge-tailed eagles. The human environment ranges from urban or industrial development to farming or grazing land. The most cultivated area is the Midlands, where it has suitable soil but is also the driest part of the state. Tasmania's insularity was possibly detected by Captain Abel Tasman when he charted Tasmania's coast in 1642. On 5 December, Tasman was following the east coast northward to see how far it went. When the land veered to the north-west at Eddystone Point, he tried to keep in with it but his ships were suddenly hit by the Roaring Forties howling through Bass Strait. Tasman was on a mission to find the Southern Continent, not more islands, so he abruptly turned away to the east and continued his continent-hunting. The next European to enter the strait was Captain James Cook on HMS Endeavour in April 1770. However, after sailing for two hours westward into the strait against the wind, he turned back east and noted in his journal that he was "doubtful whether they [i.e. Van Diemen's Land and New Holland] are one land or no". The strait was named after George Bass, after he and Matthew Flinders passed through it while circumnavigating Van Diemen's Land in the Norfolk in 1798–99. At Flinders' recommendation, the Governor of New South Wales, John Hunter, in 1800 named the stretch of water between the mainland and Van Diemen's Land "Bass's Straits". Later it became known as Bass Strait. The existence of the strait had been suggested in 1797 by the master of Sydney Cove when he reached Sydney after deliberately grounding his foundering ship and being stranded on Preservation Island (at the eastern end of the strait). He reported that the strong south westerly swell and the tides and currents suggested that the island was in a channel linking the Pacific and southern Indian Ocean. Governor Hunter thus wrote to Joseph Banks in August 1797 that it seemed certain a strait existed. Climate Tasmania has a relatively cool temperate climate compared to the rest of Australia, spared from the hot summers of the mainland and experiencing four distinct seasons. Summer is from December to February when the average maximum sea temperature is 21 °C (70 °F) and inland areas around Launceston reach 24 °C (75 °F). Other inland areas are much cooler, with Liawenee, located on the Central Plateau, one of the coldest places in Australia, ranging between 4 and 17 °C (39 and 63 °F) in February. Autumn is from March to May, with mostly settled weather, as summer patterns gradually take on the shape of winter patterns. The winter months are from June to August and are generally the wettest and coldest months in the state, with most high lying areas receiving considerable snowfall. Winter maximums are 12 °C (54 °F) on average along coastal areas and 3 °C (37 °F) on the central plateau, as a result of a series of cold fronts from the Southern Ocean. Inland areas receive regular freezes throughout the winter months. Spring is from September to November, and is an unsettled season of transition, where winter weather patterns begin to take the shape of summer patterns, although snowfall is still common up until October. Spring is generally the windiest time of the year with afternoon sea breezes starting to take effect on the coast. Biodiversity Geographically and biological isolated, Tasmania is known for its unique endemic flora and fauna. Flora Tasmania has extremely diverse vegetation, from the heavily grazed grassland of the dry Midlands to the tall evergreen eucalypt forest, alpine heathlands and large areas of cool temperate rainforests and moorlands in the rest of the state. Many species are unique to Tasmania, and some are related to species in South America and New Zealand through ancestors which grew on the supercontinent of Gondwana, 50 million years ago. Nothofagus gunnii, commonly known as Australian beech, is Australia's only temperate native deciduous tree and is found exclusively in Tasmania. Distinctive species of plant in Tasmania include: Eucalyptus regnans (mountain ash) – the tallest flowering plant and hardwood in the world, reaching 100 m (328 ft). Nothofagus cunninghamii (myrtle beech) – the most abundant temperate rainforest canopy species found in Tasmania. Nothofagus gunnii (deciduous beech) – Australia's only winter-deciduous tree. Atherosperma moschatum (blackheart sassafras) – a co-dominant rainforest tree with a nutmeg aroma. Lagarostrobos franklinii (Huon pine) – one of the oldest-lived tree species, and a self-preserving timber. Phyllocladus aspleniifolius (celery-top pine) – a celery-leaved conifer found in rainforests. Athrotaxis (Tasmanian cedar/redwood) – a genus comprising three extant species related to sequoia found in Tasmania. Eucryphia lucida (leatherwood) – a prominent floral symbol of Tasmania and a unique monofloral honey species. Bush tucker Tasmania also has a number of native edibles, known as bush tucker in Australia. These plants were foraged by the Tasmanian Aboriginals and also used for other purposes, such as construction. Unusual trees such as cider gum (Eucalyptus gunnii) had their manna used to make a syrup or an alcohol (cider). Other trees such as wattles (acacias) like blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) and mimosa (Acacia dealbata) could have their seeds eaten or crushed into a powder. There are also many berries such as snowberry (Gaultheria hispida), fruits such as heartberry (Aristotelia peduncularis), and vegetables such as river mint (Mentha australis), though no crops like maize that are used for large production. Fauna Tasmania has a large percentage of endemism whilst featuring many types of animals found on mainland Australia. Many of these species, such as the platypus, are larger than their mainland relatives. The island of Tasmania was home to the thylacine, a marsupial which resembled a fossa or some say a wild dog. Known colloquially as the Tasmanian tiger for the distinctive striping across its back, it became extinct in mainland Australia much earlier because of competition by the dingo, introduced in prehistoric times. Owing to persecution by farmers, government-funded bounty hunters and, in the final years, collectors for overseas museums, it appears to have been exterminated in Tasmania. The Tasmanian devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936 and is now found in the wild only in Tasmania. Tasmania was one of the last regions of Australia to be introduced to domesticated dogs. Dogs were brought from Britain in 1803 for hunting kangaroos and emus. This introduction completely transformed Aboriginal society, as it helped them to successfully compete with European hunters and was more important than the introduction of guns for the Aboriginal people. Tasmania is a hotspot for giant habitat trees and the large animal species that occupy them, notably the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax fleayi), the Tasmanian masked owl (Tyto novaehollandiae castanops), the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish (Astacopsis gouldi), the yellow wattlebird (Anthochaera paradoxa), the green rosella (Platycercus caledonicus) and others. Tasmania is also home to the world's only three migratory parrots, the critically endangered Orange-bellied parrot (Neophema chrysogaster), the Blue-winged parrot (Neophema chrysostoma), and the fastest parrot in the world, the swift parrot (Lathamus discolor). Tasmania has 12 endemic species of bird in total. Mycology Tasmania is a hotspot for fungal diversity. The importance of fungi in Tasmania's ecology is often overlooked; nonetheless, they play a vital role in the natural vegetation cycle. Conservation Like the rest of Australia, Tasmania suffers from an endangered species problem. In particular, many important Tasmanian subspecies and world-significant species of animal are classified as at risk in some way. A famous example is the Tasmanian devil, which is endangered due to devil facial tumour disease. Some species have already gone extinct, primarily due to human interference, such as in the case of the thylacine or the Tasmanian emu. In Tasmania, there are about 90 endangered, vulnerable, or threatened vertebrate species classified by the state or Commonwealth governments. Because of a reliance on roads and private vehicle transport, and a high concentration of animal populations divided by this development, Tasmania has the worst (per kilometre) roadkill rate in the world, with 32 animals killed per hour and at least 300,000 per year. Protected areas of Tasmania cover 21% of the island's land area in the form of national parks. The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) was inscribed by UNESCO in 1982, where it is globally significant because "most UNESCO World Heritage sites meet only one or two of the ten criteria for that status. The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) meets 7 out of 10 criteria. Only one other place on earth—China’s Mount Taishan—meets that many criteria". Controversy surrounds the decision in 2014 by the Abbott federal Liberal government to request the area's delisting and opening for resource exploration (before it was rejected by the UN Committee at Doha), and the current mining and deforestation in the state's Tarkine region, the largest single temperate rainforest in Australia. Demography Tasmania's population is more homogeneous than that of other states of Australia, with most of its population being of British (primarily English) descent. Approximately 65% of its residents are descendants of an estimated 10,000 "founding families" from the mid-19th century. Until 2012, Tasmania was the only state in Australia with an above-replacement total fertility rate; Tasmanian women had an average of 2.24 children each. By 2012 the birth rate had slipped to 2.1 children per woman, bringing the state to the replacement threshold, but it continues to have the second-highest birth rate of any state or territory (behind the Northern Territory). Major population centres include Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, Burnie, and Ulverstone. Kingston is often defined as a separate city but is generally regarded as part of the Greater Hobart Area. Ancestry and immigration At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 19.3% of the population was born overseas at the 2016 census. The five largest groups of overseas-born were from England (3.7%), New Zealand (1%), Mainland China (0.6%), Scotland (0.4%) and the Netherlands (0.4%). 4.6% of the population, or 23,572 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. Language At the 2021 census, 86.1% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.5%), Nepali (1.3%), Punjabi (0.5%) and Spanish (0.3%). Religion According to the 2021 Census, 50.0% of the Tasmanian population identified as having no religious affiliation. Christianity is followed by 38.4% of the population. About 4.5% of people in Tasmania follows non-Christian religion mainly Hinduism (1.7%), Buddhism (1.0%) and Islam (0.9%). At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated religions were Anglicanism (20.4%) and Catholicism (15.6%), while 37.8% of the population cited no religion. Government The form of the government of Tasmania is prescribed in its constitution, which dates from 1934. Since 1901, Tasmania has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Australian Constitution regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth and prescribes which powers each level of government is allowed. Tasmania is represented in the Senate by 12 senators, on an equal basis with all other states. In the House of Representatives, Tasmania is entitled to five seats, which is the minimum allocation for a state guaranteed by the Constitution—the number of House of Representatives seats for each state is otherwise decided on the basis of their relative populations, and Tasmania has never qualified for five seats on that basis alone. Tasmania's House of Assembly use a system of multi-seat proportional representation known as Hare-Clark. Elections At the 2002 state election, the Labor Party won 14 of the 25 House seats. The people decreased their vote for the Liberal Party; representation in the Parliament fell to seven seats. The Greens won four seats, with over 18% of the popular vote, the highest proportion of any Green party in any parliament in the world at that time. On 23 February 2004 the Premier Jim Bacon announced his retirement, after being diagnosed with lung cancer. In his last months he opened a vigorous anti-smoking campaign which included many restrictions on where individuals could smoke, such as pubs. He died four months later. Bacon was succeeded by Paul Lennon, who, after leading the state for two years, went on to win the 2006 state election in his own right. Lennon resigned in 2008 and was succeeded by David Bartlett, who formed a coalition government with the Greens after the 2010 state election resulted in a hung parliament. Bartlett resigned as Premier in January 2011 and was replaced by Lara Giddings, who became Tasmania's first female Premier. In March 2014 Will Hodgman's Liberal Party won government, ending sixteen years of Labor governance, and ending an eight-year period for Hodgman himself as Leader of the Opposition. Hodgman then won a second term of government in the 2018 state election, but resigned mid-term in January 2020 and was replaced by Peter Gutwein. In May 2021, the Tasmanian state election was held after being called early by the incumbent Liberal Party, resulting in their return to government and establishment of a one-seat majority. It was also the first time that the Liberal Party had been elected three-times in a row. In April 2022, former deputy premier Jeremy Rockliff became Premier after Gutwein announced his retirement from politics. As of April 2023, Tasmania remains the only state governed by the Liberal Party in Australia. Politics Tasmania has a number of undeveloped regions. Proposals for local economic development have been faced with requirements for environmental sensitivity, or opposition. In particular, proposals for hydroelectric power generation were debated in the late 20th century. In the 1970s, opposition to the construction of the Lake Pedder reservoir impoundment led to the formation of the world's first Green party, the United Tasmania Group. In the early 1980s the state debated the proposed Franklin River Dam. The anti-dam sentiment was shared by many Australians outside Tasmania and proved a factor in the election of the Hawke Labor government in 1983, which halted construction of the dam. Since the 1980s the environmental focus has shifted to old growth logging and mining in the Tarkine region, which have both proved divisive. The Tasmania Together process recommended an end to clear felling in high conservation old growth forests by January 2003, but was unsuccessful. In 1996, the House of Assembly consisted of 35 seats with 7 seats per each of the five electorates. By the 1998 election, the number of seats had been reduced down to 25, or 5 per each electorate. This resulted in the reduction of the Greens' number of seats from 4 to 1, and increased the proportion of seats held by both the Labor and Liberal parties. This was despite growth in population (five-fold since responsible government) and an increase in the voting percentage required for a majority government. There was also no public consultation, and inquiries at the time had recommended the opposite. The House of Assembly Select Committee in 2020 recommended in its report that the number should be increased again from 25 to 35, arguing that such a small representation would undermine democracy and limit the capabilities of the government. In 2010, the major party leadership had even endorsed reinstating the 35 seat number, but Liberal and Labor support was withdrawn the following year, with only the Greens keeping their commitment. Local government Tasmania has 29 local government areas. Local councils are responsible for functions delegated by the Tasmanian parliament, such as urban planning, road infrastructure and waste management. Council revenue comes mostly from property taxes and government grants. As with the House of Assembly, Tasmania's local government elections use a system of multi-seat proportional representation known as Hare–Clark. Local government elections take place every four years and are conducted by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission by full postal ballot. The next local government elections will be held during October 2026. Economy Traditionally, Tasmania's main industries have been mining (including copper, zinc, tin, and iron), agriculture, forestry, and tourism. Tasmania is on Australia's electrical grid and in the 1940s and 1950s, a hydro-industrialisation initiative was embodied in the state by Hydro Tasmania. These all have had varying fortunes over the last century and more, involved in ebbs and flows of population moving in and away dependent upon the specific requirements of the dominant industries of the time. The state also has a large number of food exporting sectors, including but not limited to seafood (such as salmon, abalone and crayfish). In the 1960s and 1970s there was a decline in traditional crops such as apples and pears, with other crops and industries eventually rising in their place. During the 15 years until 2010, new agricultural products such as wine, saffron, pyrethrum and cherries have been fostered by the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research. Favourable economic conditions throughout Australia, cheaper air fares, and two new Spirit of Tasmania ferries have all contributed to what is now a rising tourism industry. About 1.7% of the Tasmanian population are employed by local government. Other major employers include Nyrstar, Norske Skog, Grange Resources, Rio Tinto, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart, and Federal Group. Small business is a large part of the community life, including Incat, Moorilla Estate and Tassal. In the late 1990s, a number of national companies based their call centres in the state after obtaining cheap access to broad-band fibre optic connections. 34% of Tasmanians are reliant on welfare payments as their primary source of income. This number is in part due to the large number of older residents and retirees in Tasmania receiving Age Pensions. Due to its natural environment and clean air, Tasmania is a common retirement selection for Australians. Science and technology The modern scientific sector in Tasmania benefits from around $500 million in annual investment. Tasmania has a long history of scientific and technological innovation. The first scientific-style observations were conducted by the First Nation Tasmanians, primarily through the watching and mythologising of the night sky. Their story explaining the phases of the moon and sun "is one of the rare accounts that explicitly acknowledges that the light of the Moon is a reflection of the Sun's light". The French D'Entrecasteaux Expedition of 1792–93 had anchored twice during its search of the missing La Pérouse in the Baie de la Recherche (Recherche Bay) in far-south Tasmania. During their stay, the crew took botanical, astronomical, and geomagnetic observations which were the first of their kind performed on Australian soil. As well as this, they engaged in amicable relations with the locals and environment, gifting the area a "French garden", in which "the relatively extensive, well-documented (both pictorially and written) encounters [...] between [them] provided a very early opportunity for meetings and mutual observation". The longest-running branch of the Royal Society outside of the United Kingdom is the Royal Society of Tasmania which was summoned in 1843. The Tasmanian Society of Natural History had been formed previously in 1838 before its merger with the Royal Society in 1849. It had been served by early botanists working in Tasmania such as Ronald Gunn and his correspondences. Although Tamworth in New South Wales is often credited as being the first place in Australia with electric street lighting in 1888, Waratah in North West Tasmania was actually the first place to do so in Australia in 1886, although at a smaller scale. Culture Literature Notable titles by Tasmanian authors include The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, The Alphabet of Light and Dark by Danielle Wood, The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson and The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher Koch, The Rain Queen by Katherine Scholes, Bridget Crack by Rachel Leary, and The Blue Day Book by Bradley Trevor Greive. A small part of Helen Garner's Monkey Grip is set in Hobart as the main characters take a sojourn there. Children's books include They Found a Cave by Nan Chauncy, The Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner, Finding Serendipity, A Week Without Tuesday and Blueberry Pancakes Forever by Angelica Banks, Tiger Tale by Marion and Steve Isham. Tasmania is home to the eminent literary magazine that was formed in 1979, Island magazine, and the biennial Tasmanian Writers and Readers Festival, now renamed the Hobart Writers Festival. Tasmanian Gothic is a literary genre which expresses the island state's "peculiar 'otherness' in relation to the mainland, as a remote, mysterious and self-enclosed place." Marcus Clarke's novel For the Term of his Natural Life, written in the 1870s and set in convict era Tasmania, is a seminal example. This distinctive Gothic is not just restricted to literature, but can be represented through all the arts, such as in painting, music, or architecture. Visual arts The biennial Tasmanian Living Artists' Week is a ten-day statewide festival for Tasmania's visual artists. The fourth festival in 2007 involved more than 1000 artists. Tasmania is home to two winners of the prestigious Archibald Prize—Jack Carington Smith in 1963 for a portrait of James McAuley, and Geoffrey Dyer in 2003 for his portrait of Richard Flanagan. Photographers Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis are known for works that became iconic in the Lake Pedder and Franklin Dam conservation movements. English-born painter John Glover (1767–1849) is known for his paintings of Tasmanian landscapes, and is the namesake for the annual Glover Prize, which is awarded to the best landscape painting of Tasmania. The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) opened in January 2011 at the Moorilla Estate in Berriedale, and is the largest privately owned museum complex in Australia. Music and performing arts Tasmania has a varied musical scene, ranging from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra whose home is the Federation Concert Hall, to a substantial number of small bands, orchestras, string quintets, saxophone ensembles and individual artists who perform at a variety of venues around the state. Tasmania is also home to a vibrant community of composers including Constantine Koukias, Maria Grenfell and Don Kay. Tasmania is also home to one of Australia's leading new music institutions, IHOS Music Theatre and Opera and gospel choirs, the Southern Gospel Choir. Prominent Australian metal bands Psycroptic and Striborg hail from Tasmania. Noir-rock band The Paradise Motel and 1980s power-pop band The Innocents are also citizens. The Tasmanian Aboriginals were known to have sung oral traditions, as Fanny Cochrane Smith (the last fluent speaker of any Tasmanian language) had done so in recordings from 1899 to 1903. Tasmania has been home to some early and prominent Australian composers. In piano, Kitty Parker from Longford was described by world-famous Australian composer Percy Grainger as his most gifted student. Peter Sculthorpe was originally from Launceston and became well known in Australia for his works which were influenced by his Tasmanian origins, and he is, by coincidence, distantly related to Fanny Cochrane Smith. In 1996, Sculthorpe composed the piece Port Arthur: In Memoriam for chamber orchestra, which was first performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Charles Sandys Packer was an early Tasmanian example of the tradition of Australian classical music, transported for the crime of embezzlement in 1839, and at a similar time Francis Hartwell Henslowe had spent time as a public servant in Tasmania. Amy Sherwin, known as the Tasmanian Nightingale was a successful soprano, and Eileen Joyce, who came from remote Zeehan, became a world-renowned pianist at the time of her peak. Cinema Films set in Tasmania include Young Einstein, The Tale of Ruby Rose, The Hunter, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, Arctic Blast, Manganinnie (with music composed by Peter Sculthorpe), Van Diemen's Land, Lion, and The Nightingale. Common within Australian cinema, the Tasmanian landscape is a focal point in most of their feature film productions. The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce and Van Diemen's Land are both set during an episode of Tasmania's convict history. Tasmanian film production goes as far back as the silent era, with the epic For The Term of His Natural Life in 1927 being the most expensive feature film made on Australian shores. The Kettering Incident, filmed in and around Kettering, Tasmania, won the 2016 AACTA Award for Best Telefeature or Miniseries. The documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs was partly filmed in Tasmania due to its terrain. The Tasmanian Film Corporation, which financed Manganinnie, was the successor to the Tasmanian Government Department of Film Production but disappeared after privatisation. Its role is now filled by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Screen Tasmania, and private ventures such as Blue Rocket Productions. Higher Education Tasmania is served by the University of Tasmania, a research university established in 1846. Media Tasmania has five broadcast television stations which produce local content including ABC Tasmania, Seven Tasmania – an affiliate of the Seven Network, WIN Television Tasmania – an affiliate of the Nine Network, 10 Tasmania – an affiliate of Network 10 (joint owned by WIN and Southern Cross), and SBS. Sport Sport is an important pastime in Tasmania, and the state has produced several famous sportsmen and women and also hosted several major sporting events. The Tasmanian Tigers cricket team represents the state successfully (for example the Sheffield Shield in 2007, 2011 and 2013) and plays its home games at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart, which is also the home ground for the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League. In addition, Bellerive Oval regularly hosts international cricket matches. Famous Tasmanian cricketers include David Boon, former Australian captains Ricky Ponting and Tim Paine. Australian rules football in Tasmania is the most watched form of football and a Tasmanian team was awarded a license to enter the Australian Football League (AFL) in 2028 to be based out of a new Macquarie Point Stadium. AFL matches have been played since 2001 at Aurora Stadium in Launceston and Bellerive Oval in Hobart. Local leagues include the North West Football League and Tasmanian State League. Soccer in Tasmania is the most participated football code and there is an active Tasmanian A-League bid. The existing statewide league is the NPL Tasmania. Rugby Union is also played in Tasmania and is governed by the Tasmanian Rugby Union. Ten clubs take part in the statewide Tasmanian Rugby Competition. Tasmania hosts the professional Moorilla International tennis tournament as part of the lead up to the Australian Open and is played at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, Hobart. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is an annual event starting in Sydney, NSW, on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart, Tasmania. It is widely considered to be one of the most difficult yacht races in the world. In basketball, Tasmania has previously been represented in the National Basketball League (NBL) by Launceston Casino City (1980–1982), the Devonport Warriors (1983–1984), and the Hobart Devils (1983–1996). Since the 2021–22 NBL season, Tasmania has been represented by the Tasmania JackJumpers, a state-wide franchise which plays its home games in both Hobart and Launceston. The JackJumpers secured their maiden NBL championship in the 2023–24 season, marking Tasmania's first NBL title since Launceston Casino City in 1981. Cuisine Tasmanian Aboriginal people had a diverse diet, including native currants, pigface, and native plums, and a wide range of birds and kangaroos. Seafood has always been a significant part of the Tasmanian diet, including its wide range of shellfish, which are still commercially farmed such as crayfish, orange roughy, salmon and oysters. Seal meat also formed a significant part of the Aboriginal diet. Tasmania's non-Aboriginal cuisine has a unique history to mainland Australia. It has developed through many subsequent waves of immigration. Tasmanian traditional foods include scallop pies – a pie filled with scallops in curry – and curry powder, which was popularised by Keen's Curry in the 19th century. Tasmania also produces and consumes wasabi, saffron, truffles and leatherwood honey. Tasmania now has a wide range of restaurants, in part due to the arrival of immigrants and changing cultural patterns. Scattered across Tasmania are many vineyards, and Tasmanian beer brands such as Boags and Cascade are known and sold in Mainland Australia. King Island off the northwestern coast of Tasmania has a reputation for boutique cheeses and dairy products. The Central Cookery Book was written in 1930 by A. C. Irvine and is still popular in Australia and even internationally. Tasmanian cuisine is often unique and has won many awards. One example is the Hartshorn Distillery, which has won prizes in the World Vodka Awards for three years in a row since 2017. Events To foster tourism, the state government encourages or supports several annual events in and around the island. The best known of these is the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, starting on Boxing Day in Sydney and usually arriving at Constitution Dock in Hobart around three to four days later, during the Taste of Tasmania, an annual food and wine festival. Other events include the Targa Tasmania rally which attracts rally drivers from around the world and is staged all over the state, over five days. Rural or regional events include Agfest, a three-day agricultural show held at Carrick (just west of Launceston) in early May and NASA supported TastroFest – Tasmania's Astronomy Festival, held early August in Ulverstone (Northwest Tasmania). The Royal Hobart Show and Royal Launceston Show are both held in October annually. Music events held in Tasmania include the Falls Festival at Marion Bay (a Victorian event now held in both Victoria and Tasmania on New Year's Eve); the Festival of Voices, a national celebration of song held each year in Hobart attracting international and national teachers and choirs in the heart of Winter; and MS Fest, a charity music event held in Launceston to raise money for those with multiple sclerosis. The Cygnet Folk Festival is one of Australia's most iconic folk music festivals and is held in Cygnet in the Huon Valley every year in January. The Tasmanian Lute Festival is an early music event held in different locations in Tasmania every two years. Recent additions to the state arts events calendar include the 10 Days on the Island arts festival, MONA FOMA, run by David Walsh and curated by Brian Ritchie and Dark Mofo also run by David Walsh and curated by Leigh Carmichael. The Unconformity is a three-day festival held every two years in Queenstown on the West Coast. Each February in Evandale a penny-farthing championships are held. Perception within Australia Tasmania is perceived within Australia and internationally as an island with pristine wildlife, water and air. It is known for its ecotourism for these reasons, and is considered an idyllic location for Australians considering a "tree-" or "sea-change", or are seeking retirement because of Tasmania's temperate environment and friendly locals. In other parts of the world, Tasmania is considered as the opposite side of the planet to most places, and supposedly home to mythically exotic animals, such as the Tasmanian Devil as popularised by Warner Brothers. Stereotypes Tasmania has a reputation within Australia that is often at odds with the reality of the state or may have only been true during colonial times and has only persevered on the Australian mainland as a myth. Because of these stereotypes, Tasmania is often referred to as the primary target (i.e., "butt") of mainland Australian jokes. In more recent times, references to insults against Tasmania are more sarcastic and jovial, but angst against the island still exists. The most commonly cited sarcastic comment is on the supposedly 'two-headed' Tasmanians, which originated due to some colonists developing goitres from the low amount of iodine in the island's soil. But as Tasmania receives higher volumes of inter-state tourists, the perceptions are in the process of changing. The most prominent example of negative stereotype is of inbreeding due to the relatively small size of Tasmania compared to the rest of Australia (though Tasmania is nearly as large as the Republic of Ireland in area, and more populous than Iceland). This is untrue and if it had once been the case, it would have existed in the rest of colonial Australia as well, though Tasmania's penal establishments were some of the harshest in the entire colony and home to infamous bushrangers. This is a part of the also-receding global stereotype that all Australians are or were derived from criminals, even as most convicts were transported for petty crimes. During this period of European settlement, Tasmania was the second centre of power (and a significant port of the British Empire) on the continent after New South Wales, before being surpassed in the latter half of the 19th century by Victoria and regions sustained by mining booms following the cessation of transportation in 1853. A mentality developed in certain corners of Australia, and led to a general dislike of Tasmania amongst these people, even if the opinion-holder had never properly visited. It can rise to such an extent as to argue for the secession of Tasmania from the rest of Australia, in an effort to 'recover' Australia's reputation from Tasmania. Transport Air Tasmania's main air carriers are Jetstar and Virgin Australia; Qantas and QantasLink. These airlines fly direct routes to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Major airports include Hobart Airport and Launceston Airport; the smaller airports, Burnie (Wynyard) and King Island, serviced by Rex Airlines; and Devonport, serviced by QantasLink; have services to Melbourne. Intra-Tasmanian air services are offered by Airlines of Tasmania. Until 2001 Ansett Australia operated majorly out of Tasmania to 12 destinations nationwide. Tourism-related air travel is also represented in Tasmania, such as in the Par Avion route between Cambridge Aerodrome near Hobart to Melaleuca in Southwest National Park. Antarctica base Tasmania – Hobart in particular – serves as Australia's chief sea link to Antarctica, with the Australian Antarctic Division located in Kingston. Hobart is also the home port of the French ship l'Astrolabe, which makes regular supply runs to the French Southern Territories near and in Antarctica. Road Within the state, the primary form of transport is by road. Since the 1980s, many of the state's highways have undergone regular upgrades. These include the Hobart Southern Outlet, Launceston Southern Outlet, Bass Highway reconstruction, and the Huon Highway. Public transport is provided by Metro Tasmania bus services, regular taxis and Hobart only UBER ride-share services within urban areas, with Redline Coaches, Tassielink Transit and Callows Coaches providing bus service between population centres. Rail Rail transport in Tasmania consists of narrow-gauge lines to all four major population centres and to mining and forestry operations on the west coast and in the northwest. Services are operated by TasRail. Regular passenger train services in the state ceased in 1977; the only scheduled trains are for freight, but there are tourist trains in specific areas, for example the West Coast Wilderness Railway. There is an ongoing proposal to reinstate commuter trains to Hobart. This idea however lacks political motivation. Shipping There is a substantial amount of commercial and recreational shipping within Hobart's harbour, and the port hosts approximately 120 cruise ships during the warmer half of the year, and there are occasional visits from military vessels. Burnie and Devonport on the northwest coast host ports and several other coastal towns host either small fishing ports or substantial marinas. The domestic sea route between Tasmania and the mainland is serviced by Bass Strait passenger/vehicle ferries operated by the Tasmanian government-owned TT-Line. The state is also home to Incat, a manufacturer of very high-speed aluminium catamarans that regularly broke records when they were first launched. Gallery See also Index of Australia-related articles List of amphibians of Tasmania List of schools in Tasmania Omission of Tasmania from maps of Australia Outline of Australia Regions of Tasmania Notes References Further reading Fenton, James (1884). A History of Tasmania From Its Discovery in 1642 to the Present Time (PDF). Launceston, Tasmania: Launceston Examiner. Alexander, Alison, ed. (2005). The Companion to Tasmanian History. Hobart, Tasmania: Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania. ISBN 978-1-86295-223-2. OCLC 61888464. Robson, L. L. (1983). A History of Tasmania. Vol. 1. Van Diemen's Land from the Earliest Times to 1855. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-554364-5. Robson, L. L. (1991). A History of Tasmania. Vol. 2. Colony and State from 1856 to the 1980s. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553031-4. Cameron-Ash, Margaret (2018). Lying for the Admiralty. Captain Cook's first voyage & secret of Port Jackson. Kenthurst, New South Wales: Rosenberg. ISBN 978-0-648-04396-6. External links Official website Discover Tasmania – official tourism website Geographic data related to Tasmania at OpenStreetMap

South_Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australia

South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 984,321 square kilometres (380,048 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area. With 1.8 million people, it is the fifth-largest of the states and territories by population. Its population is the second-most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77% of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 26,878. South Australia shares borders with all the other mainland states. It is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight. The state comprises less than 8% of the Australian population and ranks fifth in population among the six states and two territories. The majority of its people reside in greater Metropolitan Adelaide. Most of the remainder are settled in fertile areas along the south-eastern coast and River Murray. The state's colonial origins are unique in Australia as a freely settled, planned British province, rather than as a convict settlement. Colonial government commenced on 28 December 1836, when the members of the council were sworn in near the Old Gum Tree. As with the rest of the continent, the region has a long history of human occupation by numerous tribes and languages. The South Australian Company established a temporary settlement at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, on 26 July 1836, five months before Adelaide was founded. The guiding principle behind settlement was that of systematic colonisation, a theory espoused by Edward Gibbon Wakefield that was later employed by the New Zealand Company. The goal was to establish the province as a centre of civilisation for free immigrants, promising civil liberties and religious tolerance. Although its history has been marked by periods of economic hardship, South Australia has remained politically innovative and culturally vibrant. Today, it is known for its fine wine and numerous cultural festivals. The state's economy is dominated by the agricultural, manufacturing and mining industries. History Evidence of human activity in South Australia dates back as far as 20,000 years, with flint mining activity and rock art in the Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain. In addition wooden spears and tools were made in an area now covered in peat bog in the South East. Kangaroo Island was inhabited long before the island was cut off by rising sea levels. According to mitochondrial DNA research, Aboriginal people reached Eyre Peninsula 49,000-45,000 years ago from both the east (clockwise, along the coast, from northern Australia) and the west (anti-clockwise).: 189  The first recorded European sighting of the South Australian coast was in 1627 when the Dutch ship the Gulden Zeepaert, captained by François Thijssen, examined and mapped a section of the coastline as far east as the Nuyts Archipelago. Thijssen named the whole of the country eastward of the Leeuwin "Nuyts Land", after a distinguished passenger on board; the Hon. Pieter Nuyts, one of the Councillors of India. The coastline of South Australia was first mapped by Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin in 1802, excepting the inlet later named the Port Adelaide River which was first discovered in 1831 by Captain Collet Barker and later accurately charted in 1836–37 by Colonel William Light, leader of the South Australian Colonization Commissioners' 'First Expedition' and first Surveyor-General of South Australia. The land which now forms the state of South Australia was claimed for Britain in 1788 as part of the colony of New South Wales. Although the new colony included almost two-thirds of the continent, early settlements were all on the eastern coast and only a few intrepid explorers ventured this far west. It took more than forty years before any serious proposal to establish settlements in the south-western portion of New South Wales were put forward. On 15 August 1834, the British Parliament passed the South Australia Act 1834 (Foundation Act), which empowered His Majesty to erect and establish a province or provinces in southern Australia. The act stated that the land between 132° and 141° east longitude and from 26° south latitude to the southern ocean would be allotted to the intended colony, and it would be convict-free. In contrast to the rest of Australia, terra nullius did not apply to the new province. The Letters Patent, which used the enabling provisions of the South Australia Act 1834 to fix the boundaries of the Province of South Australia, provided that "nothing in those our Letters Patent shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation and enjoyment in their own Persons or in the Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives." Although the patent guaranteed land rights under force of law for the indigenous inhabitants, it was ignored by the South Australian Company authorities and squatters. Despite strong reference to the rights of the native population in the initial proclamation by the Governor, there were many conflicts and deaths in the Australian Frontier Wars in South Australia. Survey was required before settlement of the province, and the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia appointed William Light as the leader of its 'First Expedition', tasked with examining 1500 miles of the South Australian coastline and selecting the best site for the capital, and with then planning and surveying the site of the city into one-acre Town Sections and its surrounds into 134-acre Country Sections. Eager to commence the establishment of their whale and seal fisheries, the South Australian Company sought, and obtained, the Commissioners' permission to send Company ships to South Australia, in advance of the surveys and ahead of the Commissioners' colonists. The company's settlement of seven vessels and 636 people was temporarily made at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island, until the official site of the capital was selected by William Light, where the City of Adelaide is currently located. The first immigrants arrived at Holdfast Bay (near the present day Glenelg) in November 1836. The commencement of colonial government was proclaimed on 28 December 1836, now known as Proclamation Day. South Australia is the only Australian state to have never received British convicts. Another free settlement, Swan River colony was established in 1829 but Western Australia later sought convict labour, and in 1849 Western Australia was formally constituted as a penal colony. Although South Australia was constituted such that convicts could never be transported to the Province, some emancipated or escaped convicts or expirees made their own way there, both prior to 1836, or later, and may have constituted 1–2% of the early population. The plan for the province was that it would be an experiment in reform, addressing the problems perceived in British society. There was to be religious freedom and no established religion. Sales of land to colonists created an Emigration Fund to pay the costs of transferring a poor young labouring population to South Australia. In early 1838 the colonists became concerned after it was reported that convicts who had escaped from the eastern states may make their way to South Australia. The South Australia Police was formed in April 1838 to protect the community and enforce government regulations. Their principal role was to run the first temporary gaol, a two-room hut. The current flag of South Australia was adopted on 13 January 1904, and is a British blue ensign defaced with the state badge. The badge is described as a piping shrike with wings outstretched on a yellow disc. The state badge is believed to have been designed by Robert Craig of Adelaide's School of Design. Geography The terrain consists largely of arid and semi-arid rangelands, with several low mountain ranges. The most important (but not tallest) is the Mount Lofty-Flinders Ranges system, which extends north about 800 kilometres (500 mi) from Cape Jervis to the northern end of Lake Torrens. The highest point in the state is not in those ranges; Mount Woodroffe (1,435 metres (4,708 ft)) is in the Musgrave Ranges in the extreme northwest of the state. The south-western portion of the state consists of the sparsely inhabited Nullarbor Plain, fronted by the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. Features of the coast include Spencer Gulf and the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas that surround it. The Temperate Grassland of South Australia is situated to the east of Gulf St Vincent. The principal industries and exports of South Australia are wheat, wine and wool. More than half of Australia's wines are produced in the South Australian wine regions which principally include Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, the Riverland and the Adelaide Hills. See South Australian wine. South Australian boundaries South Australia has boundaries with every other Australian mainland state and territory except the Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay Territory. The Western Australia border has a history involving the South Australian government astronomer, G.F. Dodwell, and the Western Australian Government Astronomer, H.B. Curlewis, marking the border on the ground in the 1920s. In 1863, that part of New South Wales to the north of South Australia was annexed to South Australia, by letters patent, as the "Northern Territory of South Australia", which became shortened to the Northern Territory on 6 July 1863. The Northern Territory was handed to the federal government in 1911 and became a separate territory. According to Australian maps, South Australia's south coast is flanked by the Southern Ocean, but official international consensus defines the Southern Ocean as extending north from the pole only to 60°S or 55°S, at least 17 degrees of latitude further south than the most southern point of South Australia. Thus the south coast is officially adjacent to the south-most portion of the Indian Ocean. See Southern Ocean: Existence and definitions. Climate The southern part of the state has a Mediterranean climate, while the rest of the state has either an arid or semi-arid climate. South Australia's main temperature range is 29 °C (84 °F) in January and 15 °C (59 °F) in July. The highest maximum temperature ever recorded was 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) at Oodnadatta on 2 January 1960, which is the highest official temperature recorded in Australia. The lowest minimum temperature was −8.2 °C (17.2 °F) at Yongala on 20 July 1976. The region's overall dry weather is owed to the Australian High on the Great Australian Bight. Economy As of 2016, South Australia had 746,105 people employed out of a total workforce of 806,593, giving an unemployment rate of 7.5%. South Australia's largest employment sector is health care and social assistance, making up 14.8% of the state's total employment, followed by retail (10.7%), education and training (8.6%), manufacturing (8%), and construction (7.6%). South Australia's economy relies on exports more than any other state in Australia. South Australia's credit rating was upgraded to AAA by Standard & Poor's in September 2004 and to AAA by Moody's in November 2004, the highest credit ratings achievable by any company or sovereign. The state had previously lost these ratings in the State Bank collapse. However, in 2012 Standard & Poor's downgraded the state's credit rating to AA+ due to declining revenues, new spending initiatives and a weaker than expected budgetary outlook. South Australia receives the least amount of federal funding for its local road network of all states on a per capita and a per kilometre basis. During 2019-20: South Australia's gross state product (GSP) fell 1.4% in chain volume (real) terms (nationally, gross domestic product (GDP) fell 0.3%). South Australia came out of the COVID-19 recession better than the other Australian states, with the economy growing by 3.9% in the 2020–21 financial year. This was the first time since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began collecting data in 1990 that South Australia had outperformed the other states. The recovery was driven in part by growth in the agricultural sector, which increased its production by almost 24% thanks to the end of a drought. Agriculture Cereals, legumes and oilseeds Wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, chickpeas, lentils and canola are grown in South Australia. Fruit and vegetables Apples, pears, cherries and strawberries are grown in the Adelaide Hills. Tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, brassicas, lettuce and carrots are grown on the Northern Adelaide Plains at Virginia. Almonds, citrus and stone fruit are grown in the Riverland. Potatoes, onions and carrots are grown in the Murray Mallee region. Potatoes are grown on Kangaroo Island. Viticulture South Australia produces more than half of all Australian wine, including almost 80% of Australia's premium wines. Energy South Australia has the lead over other Australian states for its commercialisation and commitment to renewable energy. It is now the leading producer of wind power in Australia. Renewable energy is a growing source of electricity in South Australia, and there is potential for growth from this particular industry of the state's economy. The Hornsdale Power Reserve is a bank of grid-connected batteries adjacent to the Hornsdale Wind Farm in South Australia's Mid-North region. At the time of construction in late 2017, it was billed as the largest lithium-ion battery in the world. Mining The Olympic Dam mine near Roxby Downs in northern South Australia is the largest deposit of uranium in the world, possessing more than a third of the world's low-cost recoverable reserves and 70% of Australia's. The mine, owned and operated by BHP, presently accounts for 9% of global uranium production. The Olympic Dam mine is also the world's fourth-largest remaining copper deposit, and the world's fifth largest gold deposit. There was a proposal to vastly expand the operations of the mine, making it the largest open-cut mine in the world, but in 2012 the BHP Billiton board decided not to go ahead with it at that time due to then lower commodity prices. The remote town of Coober Pedy produces more opal than anywhere else in the world. Opal was first discovered near the town in 1915, and the town became the site of an opal rush, enticing immigrants from southern and eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Education and research Higher education and research in Adelaide forms an important part of South Australia's economy. The South Australian Government and educational institutions have attempted to position Adelaide as Australia's education hub and have marketed it as a Learning City. The number of international students studying in Adelaide has increased rapidly in recent years to 30,726 in 2015, of which 1,824 were secondary school students. Foreign institutions have been attracted to set up campuses to increase its attractiveness as an education hub. Adelaide is the birthplace of three Nobel laureates, more than any other Australian city: physicist William Lawrence Bragg and pathologists Howard Florey and Robin Warren, all of whom completed secondary and tertiary education at St Peter's College and the University of Adelaide. Adelaide is home to research institutes, including the Royal Institution of Australia, established in 2009 as a counterpart to the two-hundred-year-old Royal Institution of Great Britain. Most of the research organisations are clustered in the Adelaide metropolitan area: The east end of North Terrace: SA Pathology; Hanson Institute; National Wine Centre. The west end of North Terrace: South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), located next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The Waite Research Precinct: SARDI Head Office and Plant Research Centre; AWRI; ACPFG; CSIRO research laboratories. SARDI also has establishments at Glenside and West Beach. Edinburgh, South Australia: DSTO; BAE Systems (Australia); Lockheed Martin Australia Electronic Systems. Technology Park (Mawson Lakes): BAE Systems; Optus; Raytheon; Topcon; Lockheed Martin Australia Electronic Systems. Research Park at Thebarton: businesses involved in materials engineering, biotechnology, environmental services, information technology, industrial design, laser/optics technology, health products, engineering services, radar systems, telecommunications and petroleum services. Science Park (adjacent to Flinders University): Playford Capital. The Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research in Woodville the research arm of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide The Joanna Briggs Institute, a global research collaboration for evidence-based healthcare with its headquarters in North Adelaide. Government South Australia is a constitutional monarchy with King Charles III as sovereign, and the Governor of South Australia as his representative. It is a state of the Commonwealth of Australia. The bicameral Parliament of South Australia consists of the lower house known as the House of Assembly and the upper house known as the Legislative Council. General elections are held every four years, the last being the 2022 election. Initially, the Governor of South Australia held almost total power, derived from the letters patent of the imperial government to create the colony. He was accountable only to the British Colonial Office, and thus democracy did not exist in the colony. A new body was created to advise the governor on the administration of South Australia in 1843 called the Legislative Council. It consisted of three representatives of the British Government and four colonists appointed by the governor. The governor retained total executive power. In 1851, the Imperial Parliament enacted the Australian Colonies Government Act, which allowed for the election of representatives to each of the colonial legislatures and the drafting of a constitution to properly create representative and responsible government in South Australia. Later that year, propertied male colonists were allowed to vote for 16 members on a new 24 seat Legislative Council. Eight members continued to be appointed by the governor. The main responsibility of this body was to draft a constitution for South Australia. The body drafted the most democratic constitution ever seen in the British Empire and provided for universal manhood suffrage. It created the bicameral Parliament of South Australia. For the first time in the colony, the executive was elected by the people, and the colony used the Westminster system, where the government is the party or coalition that exerts a majority in the House of Assembly. The Legislative Council remained a predominantly conservative chamber elected by property owners. Women's suffrage in Australia took a leap forward – enacted in 1895 and taking effect from the 1896 colonial election, South Australia was the first government in Australia and only the second in the world after New Zealand to allow women to vote, and the first in the world to allow women to stand for election. In 1897 Catherine Helen Spence was the first woman in Australia to be a candidate for political office when she was nominated to be one of South Australia's delegates to the conventions that drafted the constitution. South Australia became an original state of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Although the lower house had universal suffrage, the upper house, the Legislative Council, remained the exclusive domain of property owners until the Labor government of Don Dunstan managed to achieve reform of the chamber in 1973. Property qualifications were removed and the Council became a body elected via proportional representation by a single state-wide electorate. Since the following 1975 South Australian state election, no one party has had control of the state's upper house with the balance of power controlled by a variety of minor parties and independents. Local government Local government in South Australia is established by the Constitution Act 1934 (SA), the Local Government Act 1999 (SA), and the Local Government (Elections) Act 1999 (SA). South Australia contains 68 councils and 6 Aboriginal and outback communities. Local councils, elected on a four-yearly basis, are responsible for local roads and stormwater management, waste collection, planning and development, fire prevention and hazard management, dog and cat management and control, parking control, public health and food inspections, and other services for their local communities. Councils have the power to raise revenue for their activities, which is mostly achieved through "council rates", a tax based on property valuations. Council rates make up about 70% of council revenue, but account for less than 4% of total taxes paid by Australians. Demographics As at December 2021 the population of South Australia was 1,806,599. A majority of the state's population lives within Greater Adelaide's metropolitan area which had an estimated population of 1,333,927 in June 2017. Other significant population centres include Mount Gambier (29,505), Victor Harbor-Goolwa (26,334), Whyalla (21,976), Murray Bridge (18,452), Port Lincoln (16,281), Port Pirie (14,267), and Port Augusta (13,957). Ancestry and immigration At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 28.9% of the population was born overseas at the 2016 census. The five largest groups of overseas-born were from England (5.8%), India (1.6%), China (1.5%), Italy (1.1%) and Vietnam (0.9%). 2% of the population, or 34,184 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. Language At the 2016 census, 78.2% of the population spoke only English at home. The other languages most commonly spoken at home were Italian (1.7%), Standard Mandarin (1.7%), Greek (1.4%), Vietnamese (1.1%), and Cantonese (0.6%). Religion At the 2016 census, overall 53.9% of responses identified some variant of Christianity. 9% of respondents chose not to state a religion. The most commonly nominated responses were 'No Religion' (35.4%), Catholicism (18%), Anglicanism (10%) and Uniting Church (7.1%). South Australia was the first Australian colony not to have an official state religion, and the colony became attractive to people who had experienced religious discrimination, including Methodists and Unitarians. South Australia also had thousands of Prussian Old Lutheran immigrants, some of whom established their own form of Lutheranism. As a result, the Lutheran Church of Australia remains separate from the German Lutheran church to this day. South Australia was the location of the first Muslim mosque in Australia. Most of the state's original colonists were Christian, but of many denominations, most with their own meeting place in the city square. Adelaide has been known as the "City of Churches" since at least 1868. Some of the oldest remaining buildings in the city are churches. Education Primary and secondary On 1 January 2009, the school leaving age was raised to 17 (having previously been 15 and then 16). Education is compulsory for all children until age 17, unless they are working or undergoing other training. The majority of students stay on to complete their South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). School education is the responsibility of the South Australian government, but the public and private education systems are funded jointly by it and the Commonwealth Government. The South Australian Government provides, to schools on a per student basis, 89% of the total Government funding while the Commonwealth contributes 11%. Since the early 1970s, it has been an ongoing controversy that 68% of Commonwealth funding (increasing to 75% by 2008) goes to private schools that are attended by 32% of the states students. Private schools often counter this by saying that they receive less State Government funding than public schools, and in 2004 the main private school funding came from the Australian government, not the state government. On 14 June 2013, South Australia became the third Australian state to sign up to the Australian Federal Government's Gonski Reform Program. This will see funding for primary and secondary education to South Australia increased by $1.1 billion before 2019. The academic year in South Australia generally runs from the end of January until mid-December for primary and secondary schools. The SA schools operate on a four-term basis. Schools are closed for the South Australia public holidays. Tertiary There are three public and four private universities in South Australia. The three public universities are the University of Adelaide (established 1874, third oldest in Australia), Flinders University (est. 1966) and the University of South Australia (est. 1991). The four private universities are Torrens University Australia (est. 2013), Carnegie Mellon University - Australia (est. 2006), University College London's School of Energy and Resources (Australia), and Cranfield University. All six have their main campus in the Adelaide metropolitan area: Adelaide and UniSA on North Terrace in the city; CMU, UCL and Cranfield are co-located on Victoria Square in the city, and Flinders at Bedford Park. The University of Adelaide is part of the Group of Eight, a company of Australia's eight leading research universities. As of 2022, it is ranked by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as one of the top 100 universities in the world. It was the first university in Australia to admit women to academic courses, doing so in 1881. In 2018, the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia announced plans to merge, but these plans did not come to fruition due in part to disagreements over what to name the new university and which of the university's vice-chancellors would become the vice-chancellor of the amalgamated university. Vocational education Tertiary vocational education is provided by a range of Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) which are regulated at Commonwealth level. The range of RTOs delivering education include public, private and 'enterprise' providers i.e. employing organisations who run an RTO for their own employees or members. The largest public provider of vocational education is TAFE South Australia which is made up of colleges throughout the state, many of these in rural areas, providing tertiary education to as many people as possible. In South Australia, TAFE is funded by the state government and run by the South Australian Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology (DFEEST). Each TAFE SA campus provides a range of courses with its own specialisation. Transport Historical transport in South Australia After settlement, the major form of transport in South Australia was ocean transport. Limited land transport was provided by horses and bullocks. In the mid 19th century, the state began to develop a widespread rail network, although a coastal shipping network continued until the post war period. Roads began to improve with the introduction of motor transport. By the late 19th century, road transport dominated internal transport in South Australia. Railway South Australia has four interstate rail connections, to Perth via the Nullarbor Plain, to Darwin through the centre of the continent, to New South Wales through Broken Hill, and to Melbourne–which is the closest capital city to Adelaide. Rail transport was important for many mines in the north of the state. The capital Adelaide has a commuter rail network made of electric and diesel electric powered multiple units, with 7 lines between them. Roads South Australia has extensive road networks linking towns and other states. Roads are also the most common form of transport within the major metropolitan areas with car transport predominating. Public transport in Adelaide is mostly provided by buses and trams with regular services throughout the day. Air transport Adelaide Airport provides regular flights to other capitals, major South Australian towns and many international locations. The airport also has daily flights to several Asian hub airports. Adelaide Metro buses J1 and J1X connect to the city (approx. 30 minutes travel time), as well as other services to other parts of Adelaide. Standard fares apply and tickets may be purchased from a ticket machine at the airport bus stop. Maximum charge (September 2016) for Metroticket is $5.30; off-peak and seniors discounts may apply. River transport The River Murray was formerly an important trade route for South Australia, with paddle steamers linking inland areas and the ocean at Goolwa. Sea transport South Australia has a container port at Port Adelaide. There are also numerous important ports along the coast for minerals and grains. The passenger terminal at Port Adelaide periodically sees cruise liners. Kangaroo Island is dependent on the Sea Link ferry service between Cape Jervis and Penneshaw. Cultural life South Australia has been known as "the Festival State" for many years, for its abundance of arts and gastronomic festivals. While much of the arts scene is concentrated in Adelaide, the state government has supported regional arts actively since the 1990s. One of the manifestations of this was the creation of Country Arts SA, created in 1992. Diana Laidlaw did much to further the arts in South Australia during her term as Arts Minister from 1993 to 2002, and after Mike Rann assumed government in 2002, he created a strategic plan in 2004 (updated 2007) which included furthering and promoting the arts in South Australia under the topic heading "Objective 4: Fostering Creativity and Innovation". In September 2019, with the arts portfolio now subsumed within the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (DPC) after the election of Steven Marshall as Premier, and the 2004 strategic plan having been deleted from the website in 2018, the "Arts and Culture Plan, South Australia 2019–2024" was created by the department. Marshall said when launching the plan: “The arts sector in South Australia is already very strong but it's been operating without a plan for 20 years”. However the plan does not signal any new government support, even after the government's A$31.9 million cuts to arts funding when Arts South Australia was absorbed into DPC in 2018. Specific proposals within the plan include an “Adelaide in 100 Objects” walking tour, a new shared ticketing system for small to medium arts bodies, a five-year-plan to revitalise regional art centres, creation of an arts-focussed high school, and a new venue for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. South Australia has a public library system, and state library. Some public libraries in South Australia in rural areas are joint school and community libraries. Sport Australian rules football Australian rules football is the most popular spectator sport in South Australia. In 2006, South Australians had the highest attendance rate for the sport of any state, with 31% of South Australians attending a match in the previous twelve months. South Australia fields two teams in the Australian Football League (AFL): the Adelaide Football Club and Port Adelaide Football Club. The two teams have an intense rivalry called the Showdown. The traditional home of Australian rules football in South Australia was Football Park in the western suburb of West Lakes, which was the home ground of both AFL teams until 2013. Since 2014, both teams have used Adelaide Oval, near the city centre, as their home ground. The South Australian National Football League (SANFL), which was the premier league in the state before the advent of the Australian Football League, is a popular local league comprising ten teams: Sturt, Port Adelaide, Adelaide, West Adelaide, South Adelaide, North Adelaide, Norwood, Woodville/West Torrens, Glenelg and Central District. The Adelaide Footy League comprises 68 member clubs playing over 110 matches per week across ten senior divisions and three junior divisions. It is one of Australia's largest and strongest Australian rules football associations. Cricket Cricket has a long history in South Australia, with the first matches being played in 1839. Regular club matches were organised following the establishment of the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) in 1871. Presently, SACA governs the South Australian Premier Cricket competition in addition to all forms of domestic cricket in the state. Cricket is the most popular summer sport in South Australia, with 39,000 club players at both junior and senior levels in 2023. At the professional level, the West End Redbacks represent the men's state team, competing in the Sheffield Shield and the Marsh One-Day Cup. The South Australian Scorpions represent the women's team and compete in the Women's National Cricket League. South Australia also hosts the Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League and their women's team in the Women's Big Bash League. Matches are held at Adelaide Oval and Karen Rolton Oval in the Adelaide Parklands. International cricket is also held in South Australia, with matches being played at Adelaide Oval. The venue was used to host matches in both the men's 1992 Cricket World Cup and 2015 Cricket World Cup. Adelaide Oval also saw use during the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Outside of Adelaide, international cricket has also been played in Berri, South Australia with Berri Oval hosting a singular match during the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Association football Adelaide United represents South Australia in soccer in the men's A-League and women's W-League. The club's home ground is Hindmarsh Stadium (Coopers Stadium), but it occasionally plays games at the Adelaide Oval. The club was founded in 2003 and are the 2015–16 season champions of the A-League. The club was also premier in the inaugural 2005–06 A-League season, finishing 7 points clear of the rest of the competition, before finishing 3rd in the finals. Adelaide United was also a Grand Finalist in the 2006–07 and 2008–09 seasons. Adelaide is the only A-League club to have progressed past the group stages of the Asian Champions League on more than one occasion. Adelaide City remains South Australia's most successful club, having won three National Soccer League titles and three NSL Cups. City was the first side from South Australia to ever win a continental title when it claimed the 1987 Oceania Club Championship and it has also won a record 17 South Australian championships and 17 Federation Cups. West Adelaide became the first South Australian club to be crowned Australian champion when it won the 1978 National Soccer League title. Like City, it now competes in the National Premier Leagues South Australia and the two clubs contest the Adelaide derby. Basketball Basketball also has a big following in South Australia, with the Adelaide 36ers playing in the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. The 36ers have won four championships in the last 20 years in the National Basketball League. The Adelaide Entertainment Centre, located in Hindmarsh, is the home of basketball in the state. Mount Gambier also has a national basketball team – the Mount Gambier Pioneers. The Pioneers play at the Icehouse (Bern Bruning Basketball Stadium), which seats over 1,000 people and is also home to the Mount Gambier Basketball Association. The Pioneers won the South Conference in 2003 and the Final in 2003; this team was rated second in the top five teams to have ever played in the league. In 2012, the club entered its 25th season, with a roster of 10 senior players (two imports) and three development squad players. Motorsport Australia's premier motorsport series, the Supercars Championship, has visited South Australia each year since 1999. South Australia's Supercars event, the Adelaide 500, is staged on the Adelaide Street Circuit, a temporary track laid out through the streets and parklands to the east of the Adelaide city centre. Attendance for the 2022 event totalled 258,200. An earlier version of the Adelaide Street Circuit played host to the Australian Grand Prix, a round of the FIA Formula One World Championship, each year from 1985 to 1995. Mallala Motor Sport Park, a permanent circuit located near the town of Mallala, 58 km north of Adelaide, caters for both state and national level motor sport throughout the year. The Bend Motorsport Park, is another permanent circuit, located just outside of Tailem Bend. Rugby league The state rugby league federation is the South Australian Rugby League. The game traces its roots in the state back to the 1940s, when the Port Adelaide rugby union team split in four, and defected to rugby league. South Australia's only professional rugby league team, the Adelaide Rams, had a short but eventful existence. After debuting in the Super League competition in 1997, in 1998 they were selected to join the 20-team National Rugby League; however they were to be axed from the 1999 season as part of a rationalisation of teams (from 20 to 14) in the competition. At present however, the South Australian Rugby League still operates a local semi-professional competition consisting of both junior and adult teams from across Adelaide. Adelaide Oval hosted State of Origin series games in both 2020 and 2023, with the latter drawing a state record rugby league attendance of 48,613. Other sports Sixty-three percent of South Australian children took part in organised sports in 2002–2003. The ATP Adelaide was a tennis tournament held from 1972 to 2008 that then moved to Brisbane. Since 2020, South Australia has hosted the Adelaide International tennis tournament. Also, the Royal Adelaide Golf Club has hosted nine editions of the Australian Open, with the most recent being in 1998. The state has hosted the Tour Down Under cycle race since 1999. Places Crime Crime in South Australia is managed by the South Australia Police (SAPOL), various state and federal courts in the criminal justice system and the state Department for Correctional Services, which administers the prisons and remand centre. Crime statistics for all categories of offence in the state are provided on the SAPOL website, in the form of rolling 12-month totals. Crime statistics from the 2017–18 national ABS Crime Victimisation Survey show that between the years 2008–09 and 2017–18, the rate of victimisation in South Australia declined for assault and most household crime types. In 2013, Adelaide was ranked the safest capital city in Australia. See also Australia Outline of Australia Index of Australia-related articles Adelaide Country Fire Service Proclamation Day: 28 December 1836 South Australian Ambulance Service South Australian English Symbols of South Australia Food and drink Farmers Union Iced Coffee Pie floater South Australian food and drink South Australian wine Lists List of amphibians of South Australia List of cities and towns in South Australia List of festivals in Australia#South Australia List of films shot in Adelaide List of highways in South Australia List of people from Adelaide Local Government Areas of South Australia List of public art in South Australia Tourist attractions in South Australia Notes Footnotes Further reading External links Media related to South Australia at Wikimedia Commons South Australia travel guide from Wikivoyage Geographic data related to South Australia at OpenStreetMap sa.gov.au Official Insignia and Emblems Page South Australia's greenhouse (climate change) strategy (2007–2020) Ground Truth – towards an Environmental History of South Australia. Archived 7 October 2001 at the Wayback Machine.

New_South_Wales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales

New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. The Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory are enclaves within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. In December 2023, the population of New South Wales was over 8.3 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Almost two-thirds of the state's population, 5.3 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825. The colony then also included the island territories of Van Diemen's Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the colony's area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became the various states and territories of Australia. The Swan River Colony (later called the Colony of Western Australia) was never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal territory, as have the areas now known as the Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay Territory. History Aboriginal Australians The original inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi wodi people, who spoke a variant of the Dharawal language, are the original custodians of an area south of Sydney which was approximately bounded by modern Campbelltown, Shoalhaven River and Moss Vale and included the Illawarra. The Bundjalung people are the original custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. There are other Aboriginal peoples whose traditional lands are within what is now New South Wales, including the Wiradjuri, Gamilaray, Yuin, Ngarigo, Gweagal, and Ngiyampaa peoples. 1788—British settlement In 1770, James Cook charted the unmapped eastern coast of the continent of New Holland, now Australia, and claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory. Contrary to his instructions, Cook did not gain the consent of the Aboriginal inhabitants. Cook originally named the land New Wales, however, on his return voyage to Britain he settled on the name New South Wales. In January 1788 Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay with the First Fleet of 11 vessels, which carried over a thousand settlers, including 736 convicts. A few days after arrival at Botany Bay, the fleet moved to the more suitable Port Jackson, where Phillip established a settlement at the place he named Sydney Cove (in honour of the Secretary of State, Lord Sydney) on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. Governor Phillip formally proclaimed the colony on 7 February 1788 at Sydney. Phillip, as Governor of New South Wales, exercised nominal authority over all of Australia east of the 135th meridian east between the latitudes of 10°37'S and 43°39'S, and "all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean". The area included modern New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania. He remained as governor until 1792. The settlement was initially planned to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade and shipbuilding were banned to keep the convicts isolated. However, after the departure of Governor Phillip, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Former convicts also farmed land granted to them and engaged in trade. Farms spread to the more fertile lands surrounding Paramatta, Windsor and Camden, and by 1803 the colony was self-sufficient in grain. Boat building was developed to make travel easier and exploit the marine resources of the coastal settlements. Sealing and whaling became important industries. In March 1804, Irish convicts led around 300 rebels in the Castle Hill Rebellion, an attempt to march on Sydney, commandeer a ship, and sail to freedom. Poorly armed, and with their leader Philip Cunningham captured, about 100 troops and volunteers routed the main body of insurgents at Rouse Hill. At least 39 convicts were killed in the uprising and subsequent executions. Lachlan Macquarie (governor 1810–1821) commissioned the construction of roads, wharves, churches and public buildings, sent explorers out from Sydney, and employed a planner to design the street layout of Sydney. A road across the Blue Mountains was completed in 1815, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly wooded pastures west of the Great Dividing Range. In 1825 Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) became a separate colony and the western border of New South Wales was extended to the 129th meridian east (now the West Australian border). New South Wales established a military outpost on King George Sound in Western Australia in 1826 which was later transferred to the Swan River colony.: 61  In 1839, the UK decided to formally annex at least part of New Zealand to New South Wales. It was administered as a dependency until becoming the separate Colony of New Zealand on 3 May 1841. From the 1820s, squatters increasingly established unauthorised cattle and sheep runs beyond the official limits of the settled colony. In 1836, an annual licence was introduced in an attempt to control the pastoral industry, but booming wool prices and the high cost of land in the settled areas encouraged further squatting. The expansion of the pastoral industry led to violent episodes of conflict between settlers and traditional Aboriginal landowners, such as the Myall Creek massacre of 1838. By 1844 wool accounted for half of the colony's exports and by 1850 most of the eastern third of New South Wales was controlled by fewer than 2,000 pastoralists. The transportation of convicts to New South Wales ended in 1840, and in 1842 a Legislative Council was introduced, with two-thirds of its members elected and one-third appointed by the governor. Former convicts were granted the vote, but a property qualification meant that only one in five adult males were enfranchised. By 1850 the settler population of New South Wales had grown to 180,000, not including the 70,000 living in the area which became the separate colony of Victoria in 1851. 1850s to 1890s In 1856 New South Wales achieved responsible government with the introduction of a bicameral parliament comprising a directly elected Legislative Assembly and a nominated Legislative Council. William Charles Wentworth was prominent in this process, but his proposal for a hereditary upper house was widely ridiculed and subsequently dropped. The property qualification for voters had been reduced in 1851, and by 1856 95 per cent of adult males in Sydney, and 55 per cent in the colony as a whole, were eligible to vote. Full adult male suffrage was introduced in 1858. In 1859 Queensland became a separate colony. In 1861 the NSW parliament legislated land reforms intended to encourage family farms and mixed farming and grazing ventures. The amount of land under cultivation subsequently increased from 246,000 acres in 1861 to 800,000 acres in the 1880s. Wool production also continued to grow, and by the 1880s New South Wales produced almost half of Australia's wool. Coal had been discovered in the early years of settlement and gold in 1851, and by the 1890s wool, gold and coal were the main exports of the colony. The NSW economy also became more diversified. From the 1860s, New South Wales had more people employed in manufacturing than any other Australian colony. The NSW government also invested strongly in infrastructure such as railways, telegraph, roads, ports, water and sewerage. By 1889 it was possible to travel by train from Brisbane to Adelaide via Sydney and Melbourne. The extension of the rail network inland also encouraged regional industries and the development of the wheat belt. In the 1880s trade unions grew and were extended to lower skilled workers. In 1890 a strike in the shipping industry spread to wharves, railways, mines, and shearing sheds. The defeat of the strike was one of the factors leading the Trades and Labor Council to form a political party. The Labor Electoral League won a quarter of seats in the NSW elections of 1891 and held the balance of power between the Free Trade Party and the Protectionist Party. The suffragette movement was developing at this time. The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales was founded in 1891. 1901—Federation of Australia A Federal Council of Australasia was formed in 1885 but New South Wales declined to join. A major obstacle to the federation of the Australian colonies was the protectionist policies of Victoria which conflicted with the free trade policies dominant in New South Wales. Nevertheless, the NSW premier Henry Parkes was a strong advocate of federation and his Tenterfield Oration in 1889 was pivotal in gathering support for the cause. Parkes also struck a deal with Edmund Barton, leader of the NSW Protectionist Party, whereby they would work together for federation and leave the question of a protective tariff for a future Australian government to decide. In early 1893 the first citizens' Federation League was established in the Riverina region of New South Wales and many other leagues were soon formed in the colony. The leagues organised a conference in Corowa in July 1893 which developed a plan for federation. The new NSW premier, George Reid, endorsed the "Corowa plan" and in 1895 convinced the majority of other premiers to adopt it. A constitutional convention held sessions in 1897 and 1898 which resulted in a proposed constitution for a Commonwealth of federated states. However, a referendum on the constitution failed to gain the required majority in New South Wales after that colony's Labor party campaigned against it and premier Reid gave it such qualified support that he earned the nickname "yes-no Reid". The premiers of the other colonies agreed to a number of concessions to New South Wales (particularly that the future Commonwealth capital would be located in NSW), and in 1899 further referendums were held in all the colonies except Western Australia. All resulted in yes votes, with the yes vote in New South Wales meeting the required majority. The Imperial Parliament passed the necessary enabling legislation in 1900 and Western Australia subsequently voted to join the new federation. The Commonwealth of Australia was inaugurated on 1 January 1901, and Barton was sworn in as Australia's first prime minister. 1901 to 1945 The first post-federation NSW governments were Progressive or Liberal Reform and implemented a range of social reforms with Labor support. Women won the right to vote in NSW elections in 1902, but were ineligible to stand for parliament until 1918. Labor increased its parliamentary representation in every election from 1904 before coming to power in 1910 with a majority of one seat. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 saw more NSW volunteers for service than the federal authorities could handle, leading to unrest in camps as recruits waited for transfer overseas. In 1916 NSW premier William Holman and a number of his supporters were expelled from the Labor party over their support for military conscription. Holman subsequently formed a Nationalist government which remained in power until 1920. Despite a huge victory for Holman's pro-conscription Nationalists in the elections of March 1917, a second referendum on conscription held in December that year was defeated in New South Wales and nationally. Following the war, NSW governments embarked on large public works programs including road building, the extension and electrification of the rail network and the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The works were largely funded by loans from London, leading to a debt crisis after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. New South Wales was hit harder by the depression than other states, and by 1932 one third of union members in the state were unemployed, compared with 20 per cent nationally. Labor won the November 1930 NSW elections and Jack Lang became premier for the second time. In 1931 Lang proposed a plan to deal with the depression which included a suspension of interest payments to British creditors, diverting the money to unemployment relief. The Commonwealth and state premiers rejected the plan and later that year Lang's supporters in the Commonwealth parliament brought down James Scullin's federal Labor government. The NSW Lang government subsequently defaulted on overseas interest payments and was dismissed from office in May 1932 by the governor, Sir Phillip Game. The following elections were won comfortably by the United Australia Party in coalition with the Country Party. Bertram Stevens became premier, remaining in office until 1939, when he was replaced by Alexander Mair. A contemporary study by sociologist A. P. Elkin found that the population of New South Wales responded to the outbreak of war in 1939 with pessimism and apathy. This changed with the threat of invasion by Japan, which entered the war in December 1941. In May 1942 three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney harbour and sank a naval ship, killing 29 men aboard. The following month Sydney and Newcastle were shelled by Japanese warships. American troops began arriving in the state in large numbers. Manufacturing, steelmaking, shipbuilding and rail transport all grew with the war effort and unemployment virtually disappeared. A Labor government led by William McKell was elected in May 1941. The McKell government benefited from full employment, budget surpluses, and a co-operative relationship with John Curtin's federal Labor government. McKell became the first Labor leader to serve a full term and to be re-elected for a second. The Labor party was to govern New South Wales until 1965. Post-war period The Labor government introduced two weeks of annual paid leave for most NSW workers in 1944, and the 40-hour working week was implemented by 1947. The post-war economic boom brought near-full employment and rising living standards, and the government engaged in large spending programs on housing, dams, electricity generation and other infrastructure. In 1954 the government announced a plan for the construction of an opera house on Bennelong Point. The design competition was won by Jørn Utzon. Controversy over the cost of the Sydney Opera House and construction delays became a political issue and was a factor in the eventual defeat of Labor in 1965 by the conservative Liberal Party and Country Party coalition led by Robert Askin. The Askin government promoted private development, law and order issues and greater state support for non-government schools. However, Askin, a former bookmaker, became increasingly associated with illegal bookmaking, gambling and police corruption. In the late 1960s, a secessionist movement in the New England region of the state led to a 1967 referendum on the issue which was narrowly defeated. The new state would have consisted of much of northern NSW including Newcastle. Askin's resignation in 1975 was followed by a number of short-lived premierships by Liberal Party leaders. When a general election came in 1976, the ALP under Neville Wran came to power. Wran was able to transform this narrow one seat victory into landslide wins (known as Wranslides) in 1978 and 1981. After winning a comfortable though reduced majority in 1984, Wran resigned as premier and left parliament. His replacement Barrie Unsworth struggled to emerge from Wran's shadow and lost a 1988 election against a resurgent Liberal Party led by Nick Greiner. The Greiner government embarked on an efficiency program involving public sector cost-cutting, the corporatisation of government agencies and the privatisation of some government services. An Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was created. Greiner called a snap election in 1991 which the Liberals were expected to win. However the ALP polled extremely well and the Liberals lost their majority and needed the support of independents to retain power. In 1992, Greiner was investigated by ICAC for possible corruption over the offer of a public service position to a former Liberal MP. Greiner resigned but was later cleared of corruption. His replacement as Liberal leader and Premier was John Fahey, whose government narrowly lost the 1995 election to the ALP under Bob Carr, who was to become the longest serving premier of the state. The Carr government (1995–2005) largely continued its predecessors' focus on the efficient delivery of government services such as health, education, transport and electricity. There was an increasing emphasis on public-private partnerships to deliver infrastructure such as freeways, tunnels and rail links. The Carr government gained popularity for its successful organisation of international events, especially the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but Carr himself was critical of the federal government over its high immigration intake, arguing that a disproportionate number of new migrants were settling in Sydney, putting undue pressure on state infrastructure. Carr unexpectedly resigned from office in 2005 and was replaced by Morris Iemma, who remained premier after being re-elected in the March 2007 state election, until he was replaced by Nathan Rees in September 2008. Rees was subsequently replaced by Kristina Keneally in December 2009, who became the first female premier of New South Wales. Keneally's government was defeated at the 2011 state election and Barry O'Farrell became Premier on 28 March. On 17 April 2014 O'Farrell stood down as Premier after misleading an ICAC investigation concerning a gift of a bottle of wine. The Liberal Party then elected Treasurer Mike Baird as party leader and Premier. Baird resigned as Premier on 23 January 2017, and was replaced by Gladys Berejiklian. On 23 March 2019, Berejiklian led the Coalition to a third term in office. She maintained high personal approval ratings for her management of a bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Berejiklian resigned as premier on 5 October 2021, following the opening of an ICAC investigation into her actions between 2012 and 2018. She was replaced by Dominic Perrottet. Geography New South Wales is bordered on the north by Queensland, on the west by South Australia, on the south by Victoria and on the east by the Coral and Tasman Seas. The Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay Territory form a separately administered entity that is bordered entirely by New South Wales. The state can be divided geographically into four areas. New South Wales's three largest cities, Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, lie near the centre of a narrow coastal strip extending from cool temperate areas on the far south coast to subtropical areas near the Queensland border. Gulaga National Park in the South Coast features the southernmost subtropical rainforest in the state. The Illawarra region is centred on the city of Wollongong, with the Shoalhaven, Eurobodalla and the Sapphire Coast to the south. The Central Coast lies between Sydney and Newcastle, with the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers regions reaching northwards to the Queensland border. Tourism is important to the economies of coastal towns such as Coffs Harbour, Lismore, Nowra and Port Macquarie, but the region also produces seafood, beef, dairy, fruit, sugar cane and timber. The Great Dividing Range extends from Victoria in the south through New South Wales to Queensland, parallel to the narrow coastal plain. This area includes the Snowy Mountains, the Northern, Central and Southern Tablelands, the Southern Highlands and the South West Slopes. Whilst not particularly steep, many peaks of the range rise above 1,000 metres (3,281 ft), with the highest Mount Kosciuszko at 2,229 m (7,313 ft). Skiing in Australia began in this region at Kiandra around 1861. The relatively short ski season underwrites the tourist industry in the Snowy Mountains. Agriculture, particularly the wool industry, is important throughout the highlands. Major centres include Armidale, Bathurst, Bowral, Goulburn, Inverell, Orange, Queanbeyan and Tamworth. There are numerous forests in New South Wales, with such tree species as Red Gum Eucalyptus and Crow Ash (Flindersia australis), being represented. Forest floors have a diverse set of understory shrubs and fungi. One of the widespread fungi is Witch's Butter (Tremella mesenterica). The western slopes and plains fill a significant portion of the state's area and have a much sparser population than areas nearer the coast. Agriculture is central to the economy of the western slopes, particularly the Riverina region and Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in the state's south-west. Regional cities such as Albury, Dubbo, Griffith and Wagga Wagga and towns such as Deniliquin, Leeton and Parkes exist primarily to service these agricultural regions. The western slopes descend slowly to the western plains that comprise almost two-thirds of the state and are largely arid or semi-arid. The mining town of Broken Hill is the largest centre in this area. One possible definition of the centre for New South Wales is located 33 kilometres (21 mi) west-north-west of Tottenham. Climate A little more than half of the state has an arid to semi arid climate, where the rainfall averages from 150 to 500 millimetres (5.9 to 19.7 in) a year throughout most of this climate zone. Summer temperatures can be very hot, while winter nights can be quite cold in this region. Rainfall varies throughout the state. The far north-west receives the least, less than 180 mm (7 in) annually, while the east receives between 700 and 1,400 mm (28 and 55 in) of rain. The climate along the flat, coastal plain east of the range varies from oceanic in the south to humid subtropical in the northern half of the state, right above Wollongong. Rainfall is highest in this area; however, it still varies from around 800 millimetres (31 in) to as high as 3,000 millimetres (120 in) in the wettest areas, for example Dorrigo. In the state's south, on the westward side of the Great Dividing Range, rainfall is heaviest in winter due to cold fronts which move across southern Australia, while in the north, around Lismore, rain is heaviest in summer from tropical systems and occasionally even cyclones. During late winter, the coastal plain is relatively dry due to foehn winds that originate from the Great Dividing Range; the mountain range block the moist, westerly cold fronts that arrive from the Southern Ocean, whereby providing generally clear conditions on the leeward side. The climate in the southern half of the state is generally warm to hot in summer and cool in the winter. The seasons are more defined in the southern half of the state, especially as one moves inland towards South West Slopes, Central West and the Riverina region. The climate in the northeast region of the state, or the North Coast, bordering Queensland, is hot and humid in the summer and mild in winter. The Northern Tablelands, which are also on the North coast, have relatively mild summers and cold winters, due to their high elevation on the Great Dividing Range. Peaks along the Great Dividing Range vary from 500 metres (1,640 ft) to over 2,000 metres (6,562 ft) above sea level. Temperatures can be cool to cold in winter with frequent frosts and snowfall, and are rarely hot in summer due to the elevation. Lithgow has a climate typical of the range, as do the regional cities of Orange, Cooma, Oberon and Armidale. Such places fall within the subtropical highland (Cwb) variety. Rainfall is moderate in this area, ranging from 600 to 800 mm (24 to 31 in). Snowfall is common in the higher parts of the range, sometimes occurring as far north as the Queensland border. On the highest peaks of the Snowy Mountains, the climate can be subpolar oceanic and even alpine on the higher peaks with very cold temperatures and heavy snow. The Blue Mountains, Southern Tablelands and Central Tablelands, which are situated on the Great Dividing Range, have mild to warm summers and cold winters, although not as severe as those in the Snowy Mountains. The highest maximum temperature recorded was 49.7 °C (121 °F) at Menindee in the west of the state on 10 January 1939. The lowest minimum temperature was −23 °C (−9 °F) at Charlotte Pass in the Snowy Mountains on 29 June 1994. This is also the lowest temperature recorded in the whole of Australia excluding the Antarctic Territory. Demographics The estimated population of New South Wales at the end of December 2021 was 8,095,430 people, representing approximately 31.42% of nationwide population. In June 2017 Sydney was home to almost two-thirds (65.3%) of the NSW population. Cities and towns Ancestry and immigration At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: At the 2021 census, there were 2,794,666 people living in New South Wales that were born overseas, accounting for 34.6% of the population. Only 43.7% of the population had both parents born in Australia. 3.4% of the population, or 278,043 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2021. Language According to the 2021 census, 29.5% of people in New South Wales speak a language other than English at home with Mandarin (3.4%), Arabic (2.8%), Cantonese (1.8%), Vietnamese (1.5%) and Hindi (1.0%) being the most popular. Religion In the 2021 census, the most commonly reported religions and Christian denominations were Roman Catholicism (22.4%), Anglicanism (11.9%) and Islam (4.3%). 32.8% of the population described themselves as having no religion. Government Executive power is formally exercised by the Executive Council, which consists of the Governor and senior ministers. The current governor is Margaret Beazley. The governor commissions as premier the leader of the parliamentary political party that can command a simple majority of votes in the Legislative Assembly. The premier then recommends the appointment of other members of the two Houses to the Ministry, under the principle of responsible or Westminster government. As in other Westminster systems, there is no constitutional requirement in New South Wales for the government to be formed from the parliament—merely convention. As of early July 2023, the premier is Chris Minns of the Labor Party. Constitution The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, dating from 1856 and currently the Constitution Act 1902 (NSW). Since 1901 New South Wales has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Australian Constitution regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth. In 2006, the Constitution Amendment Pledge of Loyalty Act 2006 No 6, was enacted to amend the NSW Constitution Act 1902 to require Members of the New South Wales Parliament and its Ministers to take a pledge of loyalty to Australia and to the people of New South Wales instead of swearing allegiance to Elizabeth II her heirs and successors, and to revise the oaths taken by Executive Councillors. The Pledge of Loyalty Act was officially assented to by the Queen on 3 April 2006. The option to swear allegiance to the Queen was restored as an alternative option in June 2012. Under the Australian Constitution, New South Wales ceded certain legislative and judicial powers to the Commonwealth, but retained independence in all other areas. The New South Wales Constitution says: "The Legislature shall, subject to the provisions of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, have power to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of New South Wales in all cases whatsoever". Parliament The first responsible self-government of New South Wales was formed on 6 June 1856 with Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson appointed by Governor Sir William Denison as its first Colonial Secretary which in those days accounted also as the Premier. The Parliament of New South Wales is composed of the Sovereign and two houses: the Legislative Assembly (lower house), and the Legislative Council (upper house). Elections are held every four years on the fourth Saturday of March, the most recent being on 23 March 2019. At each election one member is elected to the Legislative Assembly from each of 93 electoral districts and half of the 42 members of the Legislative Council are elected by a statewide electorate. Local government New South Wales is divided into 128 local government areas. There is also the Unincorporated Far West Region which is not part of any local government area, in the sparsely inhabited Far West, and Lord Howe Island, which is also unincorporated but self-governed by the Lord Howe Island Board. Emergency services New South Wales is policed by the New South Wales Police Force, a statutory authority. Established in 1862, the New South Wales Police Force investigates Summary and Indictable offences throughout the State of New South Wales. The state has two fire services: the volunteer based New South Wales Rural Fire Service, which is responsible for the majority of the state, and the Fire and Rescue NSW, a government agency responsible for protecting urban areas. There is some overlap in due to suburbanisation. Ambulance services are provided through the New South Wales Ambulance. Rescue services (i.e. vertical, road crash, confinement) are a joint effort by all emergency services, with Ambulance Rescue, Police Rescue Squad and Fire Rescue Units contributing. Volunteer rescue organisations include Marine Rescue New South Wales, State Emergency Service (SES), Surf Life Saving NSW and Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA). Education Primary and Secondary The NSW school system comprises a kindergarten to year 12 system with primary schooling up to year 6 and secondary schooling between years 7 and 12. Schooling is compulsory from before 6 years old until the age of 17 (unless Year 10 is completed earlier). Between 1943 and 2009, schooling was only compulsory in NSW until age 15. Primary and secondary schools include government and non-government schools. Government schools are further classified as comprehensive and selective schools. Non-government schools include Catholic schools, other denominational schools, and non-denominational independent schools. Typically, a primary school provides education from kindergarten level to year 6. A secondary school, usually called a "high school", provides education from years 7 to 12. Secondary colleges are secondary schools which only cater for years 11 and 12. The NSW Education Standards Authority classifies the 13 years of primary and secondary schooling into six stages, beginning with Early Stage 1 (Kindergarten) and ending with Stage 6 (years 11 and 12). Record of School Achievement A Record of School Achievement (RoSA) is awarded by the NSW Education Standards Authority to students who have completed at least Year 10 but leave school without completing the Higher School Certificate. The RoSA was introduced in 2012 to replace the former School Certificate. Higher School Certificate The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is the usual Year 12 leaving certificate in NSW. The HSC is the most popular high school credential in Australia with 75,493 students studying one or more HSC courses in 2022. Most students complete the HSC prior to entering the workforce or going on to study at university or TAFE (although the HSC itself can be completed at TAFE). The HSC must be completed for a student to get an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (formerly Universities Admission Index), which determines the student's rank against fellow students who completed the Higher School Certificate. Tertiary Eleven universities primarily operate in New South Wales. Sydney is home to Australia's first university, the University of Sydney founded in 1850. Other universities include the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, University of Technology, Sydney and Western Sydney University. The Australian Catholic University has three of its seven campuses in Sydney, and the private University of Notre Dame Australia also operates a secondary campus in the city. Outside Sydney, the leading universities are the University of Newcastle and the University of Wollongong. Armidale is home to the University of New England, and Charles Sturt University. Southern Cross University has campuses spread across cities in the state's north coast. The public universities are state government agencies; however, they are largely regulated by the federal government, which also administers their public funding. Admission to NSW universities is arranged together with universities in the Australian Capital Territory by another organisation, the Universities Admission Centre. Primarily vocational training is provided up the level of advanced diplomas is provided by the state government's ten Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutes. These institutes run courses in 138 campuses throughout the state. Economy NSW is the largest state economy in Australia, with service industries contributing almost 80% of the state's economic activity and 90% of its employment. Business services which includes financial services; professional, scientific and technical services; property services; information media; and telecommunications, account for nearly a third of the state economy. Major merchandise exports include coal, copper, beef and aluminium. In recent years there has been strong growth in exports of education, tourism, and financial and business services. Construction accounted for 8% of the NSW economy in 2020–21, while manufacturing contributed 6%, mining 2%, and agriculture, forestry and fishing just under 2%. Coal and related products are the state's biggest merchandise export. Its value to the state's economy is over A$5 billion, accounting for about 19% of all merchandise exports from NSW. Tourism is worth over $18.1 billion to the New South Wales economy and employs 3.1% of the workforce. Agriculture Agriculture accounts for just under 2% of the NSW economy. NSW has the second-highest value of agricultural production of the Australian states. Wheat is the most extensive crop in the state by hectare amounting to 39% of the continent's harvest. The most important wheat-growing areas are the Central West, Orana, New England, North-West and Riverina. Barley, cotton and canola are also important broadacre crops. Most cotton production is in the New England, Orana, North West and Far West regions. However, the southern regions of the state now produce almost one-third of the state's crop by value.NSW produces about 20% of Australia's fruit and nuts, and about 12% of its vegetables by value. The major regions for fruit and nut production are the Riverina, Coffs Harbour-Grafton and the Murray. About 40,200 hectares (99,000 acres) of vineyards lie across the eastern region of the state, with the Hunter Valley and the Riverina being major wine producing regions. Cattle, sheep and pigs are the predominant livestock of NSW. The state has over one-third of the country's sheep, and one-fifth of its cattle and pigs. Australia's largest and most valuable Thoroughbred horse breeding area is centred on Scone in the Hunter Valley. Transport Passage through New South Wales is vital for cross-continent transport. Rail and road traffic from Brisbane (Queensland) to Perth (Western Australia), or to Melbourne (Victoria) must pass through New South Wales. Railways The majority of railways in New South Wales are currently operated by the state government. Some lines began as branch-lines of railways starting in other states. For instance, Balranald near the Victorian border was connected by a rail line coming up from Victoria and into New South Wales. Another line beginning in Adelaide crossed over the border and stopped at Broken Hill. Railways management are conducted by Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink which maintain rolling stock. Sydney Trains operates trains within Sydney while NSW TrainLink operates outside Sydney, intercity, country and interstate services. Both Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink have their main terminus at Sydney's Central station. NSW TrainLink regional and long-distance services consist of XPT services to Grafton, Casino, Brisbane, Melbourne and Dubbo, as well as Xplorer services to Canberra, Griffith, Broken Hill, Armidale and Moree. NSW TrainLink intercity trains operate on the Blue Mountains Line, Central Cost & Newcastle Line, South Coast Line, Southern Highlands Line and Hunter Line. Roads Major roads are the concern of both federal and state governments. The latter maintains these through the Transport for NSW agency. The main roads in New South Wales are Hume Highway linking Sydney to Melbourne, Victoria Princes Highway linking Sydney to Melbourne via the Tasman Sea coast Pacific Highway linking Sydney to Brisbane, Queensland via the Pacific coast New England Highway running from the Pacific Highway, at Newcastle to Brisbane by an inland route Federal Highway running from the Hume Highway south of Goulburn to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory Sturt Highway running from the Hume Highway near Gundagai to Adelaide, South Australia Newell Highway linking rural Victoria with Queensland, passing through the centre of New South Wales Great Western Highway linking Sydney with Bathurst, as Route 32 it continues west as the Mitchell Highway then as the Barrier Highway to Adelaide via Broken Hill Other roads are usually the concern of the TfNSW or the local government authority. Air Sydney Airport located in the Sydney suburb of Mascot is the principal airport for not just the state but the whole nation. It is a hub for Australia's national airline Qantas. Other airlines serving regional New South Wales include: NSW Rural and Regional Air Transport Operators FlyPelican Jetstar Rex Airlines Virgin Australia Corporate Air Ferries Transdev Sydney Ferries operates Sydney Ferries services within Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River, while Newcastle Transport has a ferry service within Newcastle. All other ferry services are privately operated. Spirit of Tasmania ran a commercial ferry service between Sydney and Devonport, Tasmania. This service was terminated in 2006. Private boat services operated between South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales along the Murray and Darling Rivers but these only exist now as the occasional tourist paddle-wheeler service. National parks New South Wales has more than 780 national parks and reserves covering more than 8% of the state. These parks range from rainforests, waterfalls, rugged bush to marine wonderlands and outback deserts, including World Heritage sites. The Royal National Park on the southern outskirts of Sydney became Australia's first national park when proclaimed on 26 April 1879. Originally named simply 'National Park' until 1955, this park was the second national park to be established in the world after Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. Kosciuszko National Park is the largest park in state encompassing New South Wales' alpine region. The National Parks Association was formed in 1957 to create a system of national parks all over New South Wales which led to the formation of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in 1967. This government agency is responsible for developing and maintaining the parks and reserve system, and conserving natural and cultural heritage, in the state of New South Wales. These parks preserve special habitats, plants and wildlife, such as the Wollemi National Park where the Wollemi Pine grows and areas sacred to Australian Aboriginals such as Mutawintji National Park in western New South Wales. Sport The most popular sports by participation in the state are soccer and tennis. The National Rugby League, which is based in Sydney, is the dominant professional spectator sport. In rugby league, the state is represented by the New South Wales Blues in the State of Origin series. The state hosts 10 of the 17 NRL teams: the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, Newcastle Knights, Parramatta Eels, Penrith Panthers, St George Illawarra Dragons, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Sydney Roosters, and Wests Tigers. Other rugby league competitions in the state include the NSW Cup, the Sydney A-Grade, and regional competitions administered by the NSWRL's Country Rugby League division. The main summer sport is cricket and the Sydney Cricket Ground hosts the 'New Year' cricket Test match in January each year. The NSW Blues play in the One-Day Cup and Sheffield Shield competitions. Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder both play in the Big Bash League. The state is represented in the Australian Football League by the Sydney Swans, who won the AFL premiership in 2005, and the Greater Western Sydney Giants who entered the competition in 2012. The state is represented by five teams in soccer's A-League: Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers (2014 Asian champions), Central Coast Mariners, Newcastle Jets and Macarthur FC. Other teams in major national competitions include the Sydney Kings and Illawarra Hawks in the National Basketball League, Sydney Uni Flames in the Women's National Basketball League, New South Wales Waratahs in Super Rugby and New South Wales Swifts in Super Netball. Sydney was the host of the 1938 British Empire Games and 2000 Summer Olympics. The Stadium Australia hosts major events including the NRL Grand Final, State of Origin, rugby union and soccer internationals. The annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race begins in Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day. Bathurst hosts the annual Bathurst 1000 as part of the Supercars Championship at Mount Panorama Circuit. The equine sports of campdrafting and polocrosse were developed in New South Wales and competitions are now held across Australia. Polocrosse is now played in many overseas countries. Other professional teams include: Baseball: Sydney Blue Sox Ice hockey: Newcastle Northstars, Sydney Bears, Sydney Ice Dogs Motor racing: Brad Jones Racing, Team Sydney Culture As Australia's most populous state, New South Wales is home to a number of cultural institutions of importance to the nation. In music, New South Wales is home to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australia's busiest and largest orchestra. Australia's largest opera company, Opera Australia, is headquartered in Sydney. Both of these organisations perform a subscription series at the Sydney Opera House. Other major musical bodies include the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Sydney is host to the Australian Ballet for its Sydney season (the ballet is headquartered in Melbourne). Apart from the Sydney Opera House, major musical performance venues include the City Recital Hall and the Sydney Town Hall. New South Wales is home to several major museums and art galleries, including the Australian Museum, the Powerhouse Museum, the Museum of Sydney, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Sydney is home to five Arts teaching organisations, which have all produced world-famous students: The National Art School, The College of Fine Arts, the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and the Conservatorium of Music (now part of the University of Sydney). New South Wales is the setting and shooting location of many Australian films, including Mad Max 2, which was shot near the mining town of Broken Hill. The state has also attracted international productions, both as a setting, such as in Mission: Impossible 2, and as a stand-in for other locations, as seen in The Matrix franchise, The Great Gatsby and Unbroken. 20th Century Fox operates Fox Studios Australia in Sydney. Screen NSW, which controls the state film industry, generates approximately $100 million into the New South Wales economy each year. Sister states New South Wales in recent history has pursued bilateral partnerships with other federated states/provinces and metropolises through establishing a network of sister state relationships. The state currently has 7 sister states: Guangdong, China (since 1979) Tokyo, Japan (since 1984) Ehime, Japan (since 1999) North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (since 1989) Seoul, South Korea (since 1991) Jakarta, Indonesia (since 1994) California, United States (since 1997) See also Geology of New South Wales Index of Australia-related articles Outline of Australia Outline of New South Wales Postage stamps and postal history of New South Wales Selection (Australian history) Squattocracy Notes References External links Official NSW website NSW Parliament Official NSW Tourism website New South Wales at Curlie Geographic data related to New South Wales at OpenStreetMap Levey, George Collins (1911). "New South Wales" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). pp. 537–544.

Australian_Capital_Territory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Capital_Territory

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a federal territory of Australia. Canberra, the capital city of Australia, is situated within the territory, and serves as the territory's primate city. It is located in southeastern Australian mainland as an enclave completely within the state of New South Wales. Founded after Federation as the seat of government for the new nation, the territory hosts the headquarters of all important institutions of the Australian Government. On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies of Australia was achieved. Section 125 of the new Australian Constitution provided that land, situated in New South Wales and at least 100 mi (160 km) from Sydney, would be ceded to the new federal government. Following discussion and exploration of various areas within New South Wales, the Seat of Government Act 1908 was passed in 1908 which specified a capital in the Yass-Canberra region. The territory was transferred to the federal government by New South Wales in 1911, two years prior to the capital city being founded and formally named as Canberra in 1913. While the overwhelming majority of the population resides in the city of Canberra in the ACT's north-east, the territory also includes some towns such as Williamsdale, Oaks Estate, Uriarra, Tharwa and Hall. The ACT also includes the Namadgi National Park, which comprises the majority of land area of the territory. Despite a common misconception, the Jervis Bay Territory is not part of the ACT, although the laws of the Australian Capital Territory apply as if Jervis Bay did form part of the ACT. The territory has a relatively dry, continental climate, experiencing warm to hot summers and cool to cold winters. The Australian Capital Territory is home to many important institutions of the federal government, national monuments and museums. These include the Parliament of Australia, the High Court of Australia, the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Australian War Memorial. It also hosts the majority of foreign embassies in Australia, as well as regional headquarters of many international organisations, not-for-profit groups, lobbying groups and professional associations. Several major universities also have campuses in the ACT, including the Australian National University, the University of Canberra, the University of New South Wales, Charles Sturt University and the Australian Catholic University. A locally elected legislative assembly has governed the territory since 1988. However, the Commonwealth maintains authority over the territory and may overturn local laws. It still maintains control over the area known as the Parliamentary Triangle through the National Capital Authority. Residents of the territory elect three members of the House of Representatives and two senators. With 453,324 residents, the Australian Capital Territory is the second smallest mainland state or territory by population. At the 2016 census, the median weekly income for people in the territory aged over 15 was $998, significantly higher than the national median of $662. The average level of degree qualification in the ACT is also higher than the national average. Within the ACT, 37.1% of the population hold a bachelor's degree level or above education compared to the national figure of 20%. The Australian Capital Territory had the equal fourth highest Human Development Index score (0.976) out of over 1,700 subnational regions in 2022, coming close to a perfect score of 1. History Indigenous inhabitants Aboriginal Australian peoples have long inhabited the area. Evidence indicates habitation dating back at least 25,000 years, and it is possible that the area was inhabited for considerably longer, with evidence of an Aboriginal presence at Lake Mungo dating back around 40,000–62,000 years. The principal group occupying the region were the Ngunnawal people, with the Ngarigo and Walgalu living immediately to the south, the Wandadian to the east, the Gandangara to the north and the Wiradjuri to the north-west. European colonisation Following European settlement, the growth of the new colony of New South Wales led to an increasing demand for arable land. Governor Lachlan Macquarie supported expeditions to open up new lands to the south of Sydney. The 1820s saw further exploration in the Canberra area associated with the construction of a road from Sydney to the Goulburn plains. While working on the project, Charles Throsby learned of a nearby lake and river from the local Indigenous peoples and he accordingly sent Wild to lead a small party to investigate the site. The search was unsuccessful, but they did discover the Yass River, and it is surmised that they would have set foot on part of the future territory. A second expedition was mounted shortly thereafter, and they became the first Europeans to camp at the Molonglo (Ngambri) and Queanbeyan (Jullergung) Rivers. However, they failed to find the Murrumbidgee River. The issue of the Murrumbidgee was solved in 1821 when Throsby mounted a third expedition and successfully reached the watercourse, on the way providing the first detailed account of the land where the Australian Capital Territory now resides. The last expedition in the region before settlement was undertaken by Allan Cunningham in 1824. He reported that the region was suitable for grazing and the settlement of the Limestone Plains followed immediately thereafter. Early settlement The first land grant in the region was made to Joshua John Moore in 1823, and European settlement in the area began in 1824 with the construction of a homestead by his stockmen on what is now the Acton Peninsula. Moore formally purchased the site in 1826 and named the property Canberry or Canberra. A significant influx of population and economic activity occurred around the 1850s goldrushes. The goldrushes prompted the establishment of communication between Sydney and the region by way of the Cobb & Co coaches, which transported mail and passengers. The first post offices opened in Ginninderra in 1859 and at Lanyon in 1860. During colonial times, the European communities of Ginninderra, Molonglo and Tuggeranong settled and farmed the surrounding land. The region was also called the Queanbeyan-Yass district, after the two largest towns in the area. The villages of Ginninderra and Tharwa developed to service the local agrarian communities. During the first 20 years of settlement, there was only limited contact between the settlers and Aboriginal people. Over the succeeding years, the Ngunnawal and other local indigenous people effectively ceased to exist as cohesive and independent communities adhering to their traditional ways of life. Those who had not succumbed to disease and other predations either dispersed to the local settlements or were relocated to more distant Aboriginal reserves set up by the New South Wales government in the latter part of the 19th century. Creation of the territory In 1898, a referendum on a proposed Constitution was held in four of the colonies – New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria. Although the referendum achieved a majority in all four colonies, the New South Wales referendum failed to gain the minimum number of votes needed for the bill to pass. Following this result, a meeting of the four Premiers in 1898 heard from George Reid, the Premier of New South Wales, who argued that locating the future capital in New South Wales would be sufficient to ensure the passage of the Bill. The 1899 referendum on this revised bill was successful and passed with sufficient numbers. Section 125 of the Australian Constitution thus provided that, following Federation in 1901, land would be ceded freely to the new federal government. This, however, left open the question of where to locate the capital. In 1906 and after significant deliberations, New South Wales agreed to cede sufficient land on the condition that it was in the Yass-Canberra region, this site being closer to Sydney. Initially, Dalgety, New South Wales remained at the forefront, but Yass-Canberra prevailed after voting by federal representatives. The Seat of Government Act 1908 was passed in 1908, which repealed the 1904 Act and specified a capital in the Yass-Canberra region. Government surveyor Charles Scrivener was deployed to the region in the same year to map out a specific site and, after an extensive search, settled upon the present location, basing the borders primarily on the need to secure a stable water supply for the planned capital. The Australian Capital Territory was transferred to the Commonwealth by New South Wales on 1 January 1911, two years before the naming of Canberra as the national capital on 20 March 1913. The Commonwealth gained control of all land within the borders of the new territory but ownership only of NSW Crown land, with significant parcels of extant freehold remaining in the hands of their pre-existing owners. Much of this was acquired during World War One, though a few titles were not transferred until the late 20th Century. Land within the territory is granted under a leasehold system, with 99-year residential leases sold to buyers as new suburbs are planned, surveyed, and developed. The current policy is for these leases to be extended for another 99-year period on expiry, subject to payment of an administrative fee. In an arrangement inspired by Georgism, the ideas of 19th-century American economist Henry George, leaseholders had to pay 5% of the unimproved value of the underlying land in rent until the Gorton government abolished it in 1970. Development throughout 20th century In 1911, an international competition to design the future capital was held; it was won by the Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin in 1912. The official naming of Canberra occurred on 12 March 1913 and construction began immediately. After Griffin's departure following difficulty in implementing his project, the Federal Capital Advisory Committee was established in 1920 to advise the government of the construction efforts. The committee had limited success meeting its goals. However, the chairman, John Sulman, was instrumental in applying the ideas of the garden city movement to Griffin's plan. The committee was replaced in 1925 by the Federal Capital Commission. In 1930, the ACT Advisory Council was established to advise the minister for territories on the community's concerns. In 1934, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory was established. From 1938 to 1957, the National Capital Planning and Development Committee continued to plan the further expansion of Canberra. However, it did not have executive power, and decisions were made on the development of Canberra without consulting the committee. During this time, Prime Minister Robert Menzies regarded the state of the national capital as an embarrassment. After World War II, there was a shortage of housing and office space in Canberra. A Senate Select Committee hearing was held in 1954 to address its development requirements. This Committee recommended the creation of a single planning body with executive power. Consequently, the National Capital Planning and Development Committee was replaced by the National Capital Development Commission in 1957. The National Capital Development Commission ended four decades of disputes over the shape and design of Lake Burley Griffin and construction was completed in 1964 after four years of work. The completion of the centrepiece of Griffin's design finally laid the platform for the development of Griffin's Parliamentary Triangle. Self-government In 1978, an advisory referendum was held to determine the views of ACT citizens about whether there should be self-government. Just under 64 percent of voters rejected devolved government options, in favour of the status quo. Nevertheless, in 1988, the new minister for the Australian Capital Territory Gary Punch received a report recommending the abolition of the National Capital Development Commission and the formation of a locally elected government. Punch recommended that the Hawke government accept the report's recommendations and subsequently Clyde Holding introduced legislation to grant self-government to the territory in October 1988. The enactment on 6 December 1988 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 established the framework for self-government. The first election for the 17-member Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly was held on 4 March 1989. The initial years of self-government were difficult and unstable. A majority of ACT residents had opposed self-government and had it imposed upon them by the federal parliament. At the first election, 4 of the 17 seats were won by anti-self-government single-issue parties due to a protest vote by disgruntled Canberrans and a total of 8 were won by minor parties and independents. In 1992, Labor won eight seats and the minor parties and independents won only three. Stability increased, and in 1995, Kate Carnell became the first elected Liberal chief minister. In 1998, Carnell became the first chief minister to be re-elected. Geography The Australian Capital Territory is the smallest mainland territory (aside from the Jervis Bay Territory) and covers a total land area of 2,280 km2 (880 sq mi), slightly smaller than Luxembourg. It is bounded by the Bombala railway line in the east, the watershed of Naas Creek in the south, the watershed of the Cotter River in the west and the watershed of the Molonglo River in the north-east. These boundaries were set to give the ACT an adequate water supply. The ACT extends about 88.5 km (55.0 mi) north-south between 35.124°S and 35.921°S, and 57.75 km (35.88 mi) west-east between 148.763°E and 149.399°E. The city area of Canberra occupies the north-eastern corner of this area. The Australian Capital Territory includes the city of Canberra and some towns such as Williamsdale, Oaks Estate, Uriarra Village, Tharwa and Hall. The Australian Capital Territory also contains agricultural land (sheep, dairy cattle, vineyards and small amounts of crops) and a large area of national park (Namadgi National Park), much of it mountainous and forested. Tidbinbilla is a locality to the south-west of Canberra that features the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, operated by the United States' NASA as part of its Deep Space Network. The Southern Tablelands Temperate Grassland straddles the state. The territory includes a large range of mountains, rivers and creeks, largely contained within the Namadgi National Park. These include the Naas and Murrumbidgee Rivers. In September 2022, it was announced that the border between NSW and the ACT would change for the first time since it was created in 1911. ACT chief minister Andrew Barr said NSW premier Dominic Perrottet had agreed to a proposed border change of 330 ha (1.3 sq mi) in the Ginninderra watershed. Climate The territory has a relatively dry, continental climate, experiencing warm to hot summers and cool to cold winters. Under the Köppen-Geiger classification, the territory has an oceanic climate (Cfb). January is the hottest month with an average high of 27.7 °C. July is the coldest month when the average high drops to 11.2 °C (52.2 °F). The highest maximum temperature recorded in the territory was 44.0 °C on 4 January 2020. The lowest minimum temperature was −10.0 °C on 11 July 1971. Rainfall varies significantly across the territory. Much higher rainfall occurs in the mountains to the west of Canberra compared to the east. The mountains act as a barrier during winter with the city receiving less rainfall. Average annual rainfall in the territory is 629mm and there is an average of 108 rain days annually. The wettest month is October, with an average rainfall of 65.3mm, and the driest month is June, with an average of 39.6mm. Frost is common in the winter months. Snow is rare in Canberra's city centre, but the surrounding areas get annual snowfall through winter and often the snow-capped mountains can be seen from the city. The last significant snowfall in the city centre was in 1968. Smoke haze became synonymous with the 2019/2020 Australian summer. On 1 January 2020 Canberra had the worst air quality of any major city in the world, with an AQI of 7700 (USAQI 949). Geology Notable geological formations in the Australian Capital Territory include the Canberra Formation, the Pittman Formation, Black Mountain Sandstone and State Circle Shale. In the 1840s fossils of brachiopods and trilobites from the Silurian period were discovered at Woolshed Creek near Duntroon. At the time, these were the oldest fossils discovered in Australia, though this record has now been far surpassed. Other specific geological places of interest include the State Circle cutting and the Deakin anticline. The oldest rocks in the ACT date from the Ordovician around 480 million years ago. During this period the region along with most of Eastern Australia was part of the ocean floor; formations from this period include the Black Mountain Sandstone formation and the Pittman Formation consisting largely of quartz-rich sandstone, siltstone and shale. These formations became exposed when the ocean floor was raised by a major volcanic activity in the Devonian forming much of the east coast of Australia. Flora and fauna The environments range from alpine area on the higher mountains, to sclerophyll forest and to woodland. Much of the ACT has been cleared for grazing and is also burnt off by bushfires several times per century. The kinds of plants can be grouped into vascular plants, that include gymnosperms, flowering plants, and ferns, as well as bryophytes, lichens, fungi and freshwater algae. Four flowering plants are endemic to the ACT. Several lichens are unique to the territory. Most plants in the ACT are characteristic of the Flora of Australia and include well known plants such as Grevillea, Eucalyptus trees and kangaroo grass. The native forest in the Australian Capital Territory was almost wholly eucalypt species and provided a resource for fuel and domestic purposes. By the early 1960s, logging had depleted the eucalypt, and concern about water quality led to the forests being closed. Interest in forestry began in 1915 with trials of a number of species including Pinus radiata on the slopes of Mount Stromlo. Since then, plantations have been expanded, with the benefit of reducing erosion in the Cotter catchment, and the forests are also popular recreation areas. The fauna of the territory includes representatives from most major Australian animal groups. This includes kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, platypus, echidna, emu, kookaburras and dragon lizards. Government and politics Territory government Unlike the States of Australia which have their own constitutions, territories like the ACT are governed under a Commonwealth statute—for the ACT, the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988. The Self-Government Act constitutes a democratic government for the Territory consisting of a popularly elected Legislative Assembly which elects a Chief Minister from among its membership who, in turn, appoints an Executive consisting of a number of Ministers. The executive power of the Territory rests with the ACT Government, led by the Executive. The Executive is chaired by the Chief Minister (currently the Labor Party's Andrew Barr) and consists of Ministers appointed by them. The Executive are supported by the ACT Public Service, which is arranged into directorates, and a number of public authorities. The Chief Minister is the equivalent of a State Premier and sits on the National Cabinet. Unlike the States and the Northern Territory, there is no vice-regal representative who chairs the Executive. The Chief Minister performs many of the roles that a state governor normally holds in the context of a state; however, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly gazettes the laws and summons meetings of the Assembly. The legislative power of the Territory is vested in the unicameral Legislative Assembly. The Assembly consists of 25 members who are elected from five electorates using the Hare-Clark single transferable voting system. The Assembly is presided over by the Speaker (currently the Labor Party's Joy Burch). The Assembly has almost all of the same powers as the state parliaments, the power to "make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Territory", with limited exceptions relating to the Territory's unique relationship with the Commonwealth. The Hare-Clark voting system was adopted after a referendum in 1992 and was entrenched by another referendum in 1995. The electoral system cannot be changed except by a two-thirds majority in the Assembly or a majority vote of support at a public referendum. There is no level of local government below the Territory government as in the States and the functions associated with local government are carried out principally by the Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate. There is an indigenous voice to the ACT Government, called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body. Despite the wide powers of the Territory government, the federal government continues to have power over the Territory. This includes an unused power to dissolve the Assembly and appoint a caretaker government in extraordinary circumstances. The federal and territory governments share some officers, such as the Ombudsman. The federal parliament also retains the power to make any law for the Territory under section 122 of the Constitution and an exclusive power to legislate for the "seat of government". Territory laws which conflict with federal law are inoperable to the extent of the inconsistency. Land in the Territory that is designated to be "National Land" under federal law remains under the control of the federal government, usually represented by the National Capital Authority. The federal parliament can disallow laws enacted by the Assembly by a joint resolution of both houses of Parliament, a power which replaced a federal executive veto in 2011. Judiciary and policing The judicial power of the Territory is exercised by the territory courts. These courts are the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory and the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. It is unique in that the territory does not have an intermediary court like other mainland states and territories; there is only the superior court and a court of summary jurisdiction. From 2001, appeals from the Supreme Court are heard by a panel of Supreme Court judges sitting as the Court of Appeal. The current Chief Justice is Lucy McCallum and the current Chief Magistrate is Lorraine Walker. The Federal Court has concurrent jurisdiction over civil matters arising under Territory law, a fact which has become increasingly important to the practice of defamation law across Australia. Policing services are provided by the ACT Policing unit of the Australian Federal Police under agreements between the territory government, the federal government, and the police force. Canberra had the lowest rate of crime of any capital city in Australia as of February 2019. Federal representation In Australia's Federal Parliament, the ACT is represented by five federal members: three members of the House of Representatives represent the Division of Bean, the Division of Canberra and the Division of Fenner, and it is one of only two territories to be represented in the Senate, with two Senators (the other being the Northern Territory). The Member for Bean and the ACT Senators also represent the constituents of Norfolk Island. The Member for Fenner and the ACT Senators also represent the constituents of the Jervis Bay Territory. Jervis Bay Territory In 1915, the Jervis Bay Territory Acceptance Act 1915 created the Jervis Bay Territory as an annex to the Federal Capital Territory. While the Act's use of the language of "annexed" is sometimes interpreted as implying that the Jervis Bay Territory was to form part of the Federal Capital Territory, the accepted legal position is that it has been a legally distinct territory from its creation despite being subject to ACT law and, prior to ACT self-government in 1988, being administratively treated as part of the ACT. In 1988, when the ACT gained self-government, Jervis Bay was formally pronounced as a separate territory administered by the Commonwealth known as the Jervis Bay Territory. However, the laws of the ACT continue to apply to the Jervis Bay Territory. Magistrates from the ACT regularly travel to the Jervis Bay Territory to conduct court. Another occasional misconception is that the ACT retains a small area of territory on the coast on the Beecroft Peninsula, consisting of a strip of coastline around the northern headland of Jervis Bay. While the land is owned by the Commonwealth Government, that area itself is still considered to be under the jurisdiction of New South Wales government, not a separate territory nor a part of the ACT. Demographics The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that the population of the territory was 453,324 on 31 December 2021, with an annual growth in 2021 of 0.4%. A 2019 projection estimated the population would reach to approximately 700,000 by 2058. The overwhelming majority of the population reside in the city of Canberra. At the 2016 census, the median weekly income for people in the territory aged over 15 was $998 while the national average was $662. The average level of degree qualification in the ACT is higher than the national average. Within the ACT, 37.1% of the population hold a bachelor's degree level or above education compared to the national figure of 20%. City and towns The Australian Capital Territory consists of the city of Canberra and some towns including Williamsdale, Oaks Estate, Uriarra, Tharwa and Hall. The urban areas of the Australian Capital Territory are organised into a hierarchy of districts, town centres, group centres, local suburbs as well as other industrial areas and villages. There are seven districts (with an eighth currently under construction), each of which is divided into smaller suburbs, and most of which have a town centre which is the focus of commercial and social activities. The districts were settled in the following chronological order: North Canberra: mostly settled in the 1920s and '30s, with expansion up to the 1960s, now 14 suburbs; South Canberra: settled from the 1920s to '60s, 13 suburbs; Woden Valley: first settled in 1963, 12 suburbs; Belconnen: first settled in 1967, 25 suburbs; Weston Creek: settled in 1969, 8 suburbs; Tuggeranong: settled in 1974, 19 suburbs; Gungahlin: settled in the early 1990s, 18 suburbs although only 15 are developed or under development; Molonglo Valley: first suburbs currently under construction. The North and South Canberra districts are substantially based on Walter Burley Griffin's designs. In 1967, the then National Capital Development Commission adopted the "Y Plan" which laid out future urban development in the Australian Capital Territory a series of central shopping and commercial area known as the 'town centres' linked by freeways, the layout of which roughly resembled the shape of the letter Y, with Tuggeranong at the base of the Y and Belconnen and Gungahlin located at the ends of the arms of the Y. Ancestry and immigration At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: The 2021 census showed that 32.5% of the ACT's inhabitants were born overseas. Of inhabitants born outside of Australia, the most prevalent countries of birth were India, England, China, Nepal and New Zealand. 2.0% of the population, or 8,949 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2021. Language At the 2021 census, 71.3% of people spoke only English at home. The other languages most commonly spoken at home were Mandarin (3.2%), Nepali (1.3%), Vietnamese (1.1%), Punjabi (1.1%), Hindi (1.0%). Religion The most common responses in the 2021 census for religion in the territory were No Religion (43.5%), Catholic (19.3%), Anglican (8.2%), Not stated (5.2%) and Hinduism (4.5%). Culture Education Almost all educational institutions in the Australian Capital Territory are located within Canberra. The ACT public education system schooling is normally split up into Pre-School, Primary School (K-6), High School (7–10) and College (11–12) followed by studies at University or Institute of Technology. Many private high schools include years 11 and 12 and are referred to as colleges. Children are required to attend school until they turn 17 under the ACT Government's "Learn or Earn" policy. In February 2004 there were 140 public and non-governmental schools in ACT; 96 were operated by the Government and 44 are non-Government. In 2005, there were 60,275 students in the ACT school system. 59.3% of the students were enrolled in government schools with the remaining 40.7% in non-government schools. There were 30,995 students in primary school, 19,211 in high school, 9,429 in college and a further 340 in special schools. As of May 2004, 30% of people in the ACT aged 15–64 had a level of educational attainment equal to at least a bachelor's degree, significantly higher than the national average of 19%. The two main tertiary institutions are the Australian National University (ANU) in Acton and the University of Canberra (UC) in Bruce. There are also two religious university campuses in Canberra: Signadou is a campus of the Australian Catholic University and St Mark's Theological College is a campus of Charles Sturt University. Tertiary level vocational education is also available through the multi-campus Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT). The Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) and the Royal Military College, Duntroon (RMC) are in the suburb of Campbell in Canberra's inner northeast. ADFA teaches military undergraduates and postgraduates and is officially a campus of the University of New South Wales while Duntroon provides Australian Army Officer training. The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) offers courses in computer game development and 3D animation. Sport The Australian Capital Territory is home to a number of major professional sports league franchise teams including the ACT Brumbies (Rugby Union), Canberra United (Soccer), Canberra Raiders (Rugby League) and the Canberra Capitals (Basketball). The Prime Minister's XI (Cricket), started by Robert Menzies in the 1950s and revived by Bob Hawke in 1984, has been played every year at Manuka Oval against an overseas touring team. The Greater Western Sydney Giants (Football) play three regular season matches a year and one pre-season match in Canberra at Manuka Oval. Arts and entertainment The territory is home to many national monuments and institutions such as the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Library, the National Archives, the Australian Academy of Science, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Museum. Many Commonwealth government buildings in the Australian Capital Territory are open to the public, including Parliament House, the High Court and the Royal Australian Mint. Lake Burley Griffin is the site of the Captain James Cook Memorial and the National Carillon. Other sites of interest include the Telstra Tower, the Australian National Botanic Gardens, the National Zoo and Aquarium, the National Dinosaur Museum and Questacon – the National Science and Technology Centre. The Canberra Museum and Gallery in the city is a repository of local history and art, housing a permanent collection and visiting exhibitions. Several historic homes are open to the public: Lanyon and Tuggeranong Homesteads in the Tuggeranong Valley, Mugga-Mugga in Symonston, and Blundells' Cottage in Parkes all display the lifestyle of the early European settlers. Calthorpes' House in Red Hill is a well-preserved example of a 1920s house from Canberra's very early days. The Australian Capital Territory has many venues for live music and theatre: the Canberra Theatre and Playhouse which hosts many major concerts and productions; and Llewellyn Hall (within the ANU School of Music), a world-class concert hall are two of the most notable. The Albert Hall was Canberra's first performing arts venue, opened in 1928. It was the original performance venue for theatre groups such as the Canberra Repertory Society. There are numerous bars and nightclubs which also offer live entertainment, particularly concentrated in the areas of Dickson, Kingston and the city. Most town centres have facilities for a community theatre and a cinema, and they all have a library. Popular cultural events include the National Folk Festival, the Royal Canberra Show, the Summernats car festival, Enlighten festival and the National Multicultural Festival in February. Media The Australian Capital Territory have a daily newspaper, The Canberra Times, which was established in 1926. There are also several free weekly publications, including news magazines City News and Canberra Weekly. Major daily newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, The Age and Herald Sun from Melbourne as well as national publications The Australian and the Australian Financial Review are also available for purchase via retail outlets or via home delivery in the Australian Capital Territory. There are a number of AM and FM stations broadcasting throughout the ACT (AM/FM Listing). The main commercial operators are the Capital Radio Network (2CA and 2CC), and Southern Cross Austereo/ARN Media (Hit 104.7 and Mix 106.3). There are also several community operated stations as well as the local and national stations of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A DAB+ digital radio trial is also in operation, it simulcasts some of the AM/FM stations, and also provides several digital only stations (DAB+ Trial Listing). Five free-to-air television stations service the territory: ABC Canberra (ABC) SBS New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory (SBS) WIN Television Southern NSW & ACT (WIN) – Nine Network affiliate Prime7 Southern NSW & ACT (CBN) – A Seven Network owned & operated station, Seven Network affiliate Southern Cross 10 Southern NSW & ACT (CTC) – Network 10 affiliate Each station broadcasts a primary channel and several multichannels. Pay television services are available from Foxtel (via satellite) and telecommunications company TransACT (via cable). Infrastructure Health The Australian Capital Territory has two large public hospitals both located in Canberra: the approximately 600-bed Canberra Hospital in Garran and the 174-bed Calvary Public Hospital in Bruce. Both are teaching institutions. The largest private hospital is the Calvary John James Hospital in Deakin. Calvary Private Hospital in Bruce and Healthscope's National Capital Private Hospital in Garran are also major healthcare providers. The Australian Capital Territory has 10 aged care facilities. ACT's hospitals receive emergency cases from throughout southern New South Wales, and ACT Ambulance Service is one of four operational agencies of the ACT Emergency Services Authority. NETS provides a dedicated ambulance service for inter-hospital transport of sick newborns within the ACT and into surrounding New South Wales. Transport The automobile is by far the dominant form of transport in the Australian Capital Territory. The city is laid out so that arterial roads connecting inhabited clusters run through undeveloped areas of open land or forest, which results in a low population density; this also means that idle land is available for the development of future transport corridors if necessary without the need to build tunnels or acquire developed residential land. In contrast, other capital cities in Australia have substantially less green space. Australian Capital Territory's localities are generally connected by parkways—limited access dual carriageway roads with speed limits generally set at a maximum of 100 km/h (62 mph). An example is the Tuggeranong Parkway which links Canberra's CBD and Tuggeranong, and bypasses Weston Creek. In most districts, discrete residential suburbs are bounded by main arterial roads with only a few residential linking in, to deter non-local traffic from cutting through areas of housing. ACTION, the government-operated bus service, provides public transport throughout the Australian Capital Territory. CDC Canberra provides bus services between the Australian Capital Territory and nearby areas of New South Wales (Murrumbateman and Yass) and as Qcity Transit (Queanbeyan). A light rail line that opened in April 2019 links the CBD with the northern district of Gungahlin. At the 2016 census, 7.1% of the journeys to work involved public transport while 4.5% were on foot. There are two local taxi companies. Aerial Capital Group enjoyed monopoly status until the arrival of Cabxpress in 2007. In October 2015, the ACT Government passed legislation to regulate ride sharing, allowing ride share services including Uber to operate legally in the Australian Capital Territory. The ACT Government was the first jurisdiction in Australia to enact legislation to regulate the service. An interstate NSW TrainLink railway service connects Canberra to Sydney. Canberra's railway station is in the inner south suburb of Kingston. Train services to Melbourne are provided by way of a NSW TrainLink bus service which connects with a rail service between Sydney and Melbourne in Yass, about a one-hour drive from Canberra. Canberra is about three hours by road from Sydney on the Federal Highway (National Highway 23), which connects with the Hume Highway (National Highway 31) near Goulburn, and seven hours by road from Melbourne on the Barton Highway (National Highway 25), which joins the Hume Highway at Yass. It is a two-hour drive on the Monaro Highway (National Highway 23) to the ski fields of the Snowy Mountains and the Kosciuszko National Park. Batemans Bay, a popular holiday spot on the New South Wales coast, is also two hours away via the Kings Highway. Canberra Airport provides direct domestic services to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Hobart and Perth, with connections to other domestic centres. There are also direct flights to regional cities: Dubbo and Newcastle in New South Wales. Regular direct international flights operate to Singapore and Doha from the airport daily, but both with a stopover in Sydney before Canberra. Canberra Airport is, as of September 2013, designated by the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development as a restricted use designated international airport. Until 2003, the civilian airport shared runways with RAAF Base Fairbairn. In June of that year, the Air Force base was decommissioned and from that time the airport was fully under civilian control. Utilities The government-owned Icon Water, formerly ACTEW, manages the territory's water and sewerage infrastructure. ActewAGL is a joint venture between Icon and AGL, and is the retail provider of Australian Capital Territory's utility services including water, natural gas, electricity, and also some telecommunications services via a subsidiary TransACT. Australian Capital Territory's water is stored in four reservoirs, the Corin, Bendora and Cotter dams on the Cotter River and the Googong Dam on the Queanbeyan River. Although the Googong Dam is located in New South Wales, it is managed by the ACT government. Icon Water owns Australian Capital Territory's two wastewater treatment plants, located at Fyshwick and on the lower reaches of the Molonglo River. Electricity for the Australian Capital Territory mainly comes from the national power grid through substations at Holt and Fyshwick (via Queanbeyan). Power was first supplied from a thermal plant built in 1913, near the Molonglo River, but this was finally closed in 1957. The ACT has four solar farms, which were opened between 2014 and 2017: Royalla (rated output of 20 megawatts, 2014), Mount Majura (2.3 MW, 2016), Mugga Lane (13 MW, 2017) and Williamsdale (11 MW, 2017). In addition numerous houses in Canberra have photovoltaic panels or solar hot water systems. In 2015 and 2016, rooftop solar systems supported by the ACT government's feed-in tariff had a capacity of 26.3 megawatts, producing 34,910 MWh. In the same year, retailer-supported schemes had a capacity of 25.2 megawatts and exported 28,815 MWh to the grid (power consumed locally was not recorded). The ACT has the highest rate with internet access at home (94 per cent of households in 2014–15). Economy The economic activity of the Australian Capital Territory is heavily concentrated around the city of Canberra. A stable housing market, steady employment and rapid population growth in the 21st century have led to economic prosperity and, in 2011, Commsec ranked the ACT as the second best performing economic region in the country. This trend continued into 2016, when the territory was ranked the third best performing out of all of Australia's states and territories. In 2017–18, the ACT had the fastest rate of growth in the nation due to a rapid growth in population, a strongly performing higher education sector as well as a significant housing and infrastructure investment. Higher education is the territory's largest export industry. The ACT is home to a significant number of universities and higher education providers. The other major services exports of the ACT in 2017–18 were government services and personal travel. The major goods exports of the territory in 2017–18 were gold coin, legal tender coin, metal structures and fish, though these represent a small proportion of the economy compared to services exports. The economy of the ACT is largely dependent on the public sector with 30% of the jobs in the territory being in the public sector. Decisions by the federal government regarding the public service can have a significant impact on the territory's economy. The ACT's gross state product in 2017–18 was $39.8 billion which represented 2.2% of the overall gross domestic product of Australia. In 2017–18 the ACT economy grew by 4.0 per cent, the highest growth rate of any jurisdiction in Australia. This brought real economic growth over the three years to June 2018 to 12 per cent. See also Community Based Corrections Human Rights Act 2004 Index of Australia-related articles Jervis Bay Territory Revenue stamps of the Australian Capital Territory Notes References Bibliography The Penguin Australia Road Atlas. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia. 2000. ISBN 0-670-88980-6. UBD Canberra. North Ryde, New South Wales: Universal Publishers. 2007. ISBN 978-0-7319-1882-9. Vaisutis, Justine (2009). Australia. Footscray, Victoria: Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-74179-160-0. External links Government of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory Statistical Subdivisions of the Australian Capital Territory List of public art in Australian Capital Territory Geographic data related to Australian Capital Territory at OpenStreetMap

Queensland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland

Queensland (locally KWEENZ-land, commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south, respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to the state’s north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subnational entity; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, and include tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and white sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior. Queensland has a population of over 5.5 million, concentrated along the east coast, particularly in South East Queensland. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city. Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland, the largest outside Brisbane being the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. 28.9% of the state's population are immigrants. Queensland was first inhabited by Aboriginal Australians, with the Torres Strait Islands inhabited by Torres Strait Islanders. Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, the first European to land in Australia, explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in 1606. In 1770, James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1788, Arthur Phillip founded the colony of New South Wales, which included all of what is now Queensland. Queensland was explored in subsequent decades, and the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley. During the Australian frontier wars of the 19th century, tens of thousands of Aboriginal people were killed in Queensland as colonists consolidated control over the territory. On 6 June 1859 (now commemorated as Queensland Day), Queen Victoria signed the letters patent to establish the colony of Queensland, separating it from New South Wales and thereby establishing Queensland as a self-governing Crown colony with responsible government. A large part of colonial Queensland's economy relied on blackbirded South Sea Islander slavery. Queensland was among the six colonies which became the founding states of Australia with Federation on 1 January 1901. Since the Bjelke-Petersen era of the late 20th century, Queensland has received a high level of internal migration from the other states and territories of Australia and remains a popular destination for interstate migration. Queensland has the third-largest economy among Australian states, with strengths in mining, agriculture, transportation, international education, insurance, and banking. Nicknamed the Sunshine State for its tropical and sub-tropical climates, Great Barrier Reef, and numerous beaches, tourism is also important to the state's economy. History Pre-European contact Queensland was one of the largest regions of pre-colonial Aboriginal population in Australia. The Aboriginal occupation of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC, and early migrants are believed to have arrived via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait. Through time, their descendants developed into more than 90 different language and cultural groups. During the last ice age, Queensland's landscape became more arid and largely desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. The people developed the world's first seed-grinding technology. The end of the glacial period brought about a warming climate, making the land more hospitable. It brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the state's tropical rainforests. The Torres Strait Islands is home to the Torres Strait Islander peoples. Torres Strait Islanders are ethnically and culturally distinct from mainland Aboriginal peoples. They have a long history of interaction with both Aboriginal peoples of what is now Australia and the peoples of New Guinea. European colonisation In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa, on the western shore of Cape York. This was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia, and it also marked the first reported contact between Europeans and the Aboriginal people of Australia. The region was also explored by French and Spanish explorers (commanded by Louis Antoine de Bougainville and Luís Vaez de Torres, respectively) before the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of the Kingdom of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming eastern Australia, including Queensland, New South Wales. The Aboriginal population declined significantly after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century and massacres by the European settlers. In 1823, John Oxley, a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone (then Port Curtis) and Moreton Bay. At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River. He returned in 1824 and established a penal settlement at what is now Redcliffe. The settlement, initially known as Edenglassie, was then transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre. Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839 transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842 free settlement, which had already commenced, was officially permitted. In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port. While most early immigrants came from New South Wales, the first free immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay from Europe was the Artemisia, in 1848. Earlier than this immigrant ship was the arrival of the Irish famine orphan girls to Queensland. Devised by the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, The Earl Grey Scheme established a special emigration scheme which was designed to resettle destitute girls from the workhouses of Ireland during the Great Famine. The first ship, the "Earl Grey", departed Ireland for a 124-day sail to Sydney. After controversy developed upon their arrival in Australia, a small group of 37 young orphans, sometimes referred to as The Belfast Girls or the Feisty Colleens, never set foot on Sydney soil, and instead sailed up to Brisbane (then Moreton Bay) on 21 October 1848 on board the Ann Mary. This scheme continued until 1852. In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton. Frontier wars and massacres The frontier wars fought between European settlers and Aboriginal tribes in Queensland were the bloodiest and most brutal in colonial Australia. Many of these conflicts are now seen as acts of genocide. The wars featured the most frequent massacres of First Nations people, the three deadliest massacres on white settlers, the most disreputable frontier police force, and the highest number of white victims to frontier violence on record in any Australian colony. Across at least 644 collisions at least 66,680 were killed — with Aboriginal fatalities alone comprising no less than 65,180. Of these deaths, around 24,000 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by the Native Police between 1859 and 1897. The military force of the Queensland Government in this war was the Native Police, who operated from 1849 to the 1920s. The Native Police was a body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander troopers that operated under the command of white officers. The Native Police were often recruited forcefully from far-away communities. Conflict spread quickly with free settlement in 1838, with settlement rapidly expanding in a great rush to take up the surrounding land in the Darling Downs, Logan and Brisbane Valley and South Burnett onwards from 1840, in many cases leading to widespread fighting and heavy loss of life. The conflict later spread north to the Wide Bay and Burnett River and Hervey Bay region, and at one stage the settlement of Maryborough was virtually under siege. The largest reasonably well-documented massacres in southeast Queensland were the Kilcoy and Whiteside poisonings, each of which was said to have taken up to 70 Aboriginal lives by use of a gift of flour laced with strychnine. At the Battle of One Tree Hill in September 1843, Multuggerah and his group of warriors ambushed one group of settlers, routing them and subsequently others in the skirmishes which followed, starting in retaliation for the Kilcoy poisoning. Central Queensland was particularly hard hit during the 1860s and 1870s, several contemporary writers mention the Skull Hole, Bladensburg, or Mistake Creek massacre on Bladensburg Station near Winton, which in 1901 was said to have taken up to 200 Aboriginal lives. First Nations warriors killed 19 settlers during the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre on 17 October 1861. In the weeks afterwards, police, native police and civilians killed up to 370 members of the Gayiri Aboriginal people in response. Frontier violence peaked on the northern mining frontier during the 1870s, most notably in Cook district and on the Palmer and Hodgkinson River goldfields, with heavy loss of Aboriginal lives and several well-known massacres. Raids conducted by the Kalkadoon held settlers out of Western Queensland for ten years until September 1884 when they attacked a force of settlers and native police at Battle Mountain near modern Cloncurry. The subsequent battle of Battle Mountain ended in disaster for the Kalkadoon, who suffered heavy losses. Fighting continued in North Queensland, however, with First Nations raiders attacking sheep and cattle while Native Police mounted heavy retaliatory massacres. Slavery Tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from islands nearby to Australia and sold as slaves to work on the colony's agricultural plantations through a process known as blackbirding. This trade in what were then known as Kanakas was in operation from 1863 to 1908, a period of 45 years. Some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought to Australia, most being recruited or blackbirded from islands in Melanesia, such as the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), the Solomon Islands and the islands around New Guinea. The majority of those taken were male and around one quarter were under the age of sixteen. In total, approximately 15,000 South Sea Islander slaves died while working in Queensland, a figure which does not include those who died in transit or who were killed in the recruitment process. This represents a mortality rate of at least 30%, which is high considering most were only on three year contracts. It is also similar to the estimated 33% death rate of enslaved Africans in the first three years of being taken to America. The trade was legally sanctioned and regulated under Queensland law, and prominent men such as Robert Towns made massive fortunes off of exploitation of slave labour, helping to establish some of the major cities in Queensland today. Towns' agent claimed that blackbirded labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages. Following Federation in 1901, the White Australia policy came into effect, which saw most foreign workers in Australia deported under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, which saw the Pacific Islander population of the state decrease rapidly. Independent governance A public meeting was held in 1851 to consider the proposed separation of Queensland from New South Wales. On 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria signed letters patent to form the separate colony of Queensland as a self-governing Crown colony with responsible government. Brisbane was selected as the capital city. On 10 December 1859, a proclamation was read by George Bowen, the first Governor of Queensland, formally establishing Queensland as a separate colony from New South Wales. On 22 May 1860 the first Queensland election was held and Robert Herbert, Bowen's private secretary, was appointed as the first Premier of Queensland. In 1865, the first rail line in the state opened between Ipswich and Grandchester. Queensland's economy expanded rapidly in 1867 after James Nash discovered gold on the Mary River near the town of Gympie, sparking a gold rush and saving the State of Queensland from near economic collapse. While still significant, they were on a much smaller scale than the gold rushes of Victoria and New South Wales. Immigration to Australia and Queensland, in particular, began in the 1850s to support the state economy. During the period from the 1860s until the early 20th century, many labourers, known at the time as Kanakas, were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the state's sugar cane fields. Some of these people had been kidnapped under a process known as blackbirding or press-ganging, and their employment conditions constituted an allegedly exploitative form of indentured labour. Italian immigrants entered the sugar cane industry from the 1890s. During the 1890s, the six Australian colonies, including Queensland, held a series of referendums which culminated in the Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901. During this time, Queensland had a population of half a million people. Since then, Queensland has remained a federated state within Australia, and its population has significantly grown. 20th century In 1905 women voted in state elections for the first time. The state's first university, the University of Queensland, was established in Brisbane in 1909. In 1911, the first alternative treatments for polio were pioneered in Queensland and remain in use across the world today. World War I had a major impact on Queensland. Over 58,000 Queenslanders fought in World War I and over 10,000 of them died. Australia's first major airline, Qantas (originally standing for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services"), was founded in Winton in 1920 to serve outback Queensland. In 1922 Queensland abolished the Queensland Legislative Council, becoming the only Australian state with a unicameral parliament. In 1935 cane toads were deliberately introduced to Queensland from Hawaii in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the number of French's cane and greyback cane beetles that were destroying the roots of sugar cane plants, which are integral to Queensland's economy. The toads have remained an environmental pest since that time. In 1962, the first commercial production of oil in Queensland and Australia began at Moonie. During World War II Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur, chief of the Allied Pacific forces, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. In 1942, during the war, Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians, which resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane. The end of World War II saw a wave of immigration from across Europe, with many more immigrants coming from southern and eastern Europe than in previous decades. In the later decades of the 20th century, the humid subtropical climate—regulated by the availability of air conditioning—saw Queensland become a popular destination for migrants from interstate. Since that time, Queensland has continuously seen high levels of migration from the other states and territories of Australia. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson became the first U.S. president to visit Queensland. During his visit, he met with Australia prime minister Harold Holt. The end of the White Australia policy in 1973 saw the beginning of a wave of immigration from around the world, and most prominently from Asia, which continues to the present. In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland's northeast coast, one of the world's largest coral reef systems, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 21st century In 2003 Queensland adopted maroon as the state's official colour. The announcement was made as a result of an informal tradition to use maroon to represent the state in association with sporting events. After three decades of record population growth, Queensland was impacted by major floods between late 2010 and early 2011, causing extensive damage and disruption across the state. In 2020 Queensland was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a low number and abrupt decline in cases from April 2020 onward, social distancing requirements were implemented from March 2020 including the closure of the state borders. Geography With a total area of 1,729,742 square kilometres (715,309 square miles), Queensland is an expansive state with a highly diverse range of climates and geographical features. If Queensland were an independent nation, it would be the world's 16th largest. Queensland's eastern coastline borders the Coral Sea, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The state is bordered by the Torres Strait to the north, with Boigu Island off the coast of New Guinea representing the northern extreme of its territory. The triangular Cape York Peninsula, which points toward New Guinea, is the northernmost part of the state's mainland. West of the peninsula's tip, northern Queensland is bordered by the Gulf of Carpentaria. To the west, Queensland is bordered by the Northern Territory, at the 138th meridian east, and to the southwest by northeastern South Australia. The state's southern border with New South Wales is constituted in the east by the watershed from Point Danger to the Dumaresq River, and the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon rivers. The west of the southern border is defined by the 29th parallel south (including some minor historical encroachments) until it reaches South Australia. Like much of eastern Australia, the Great Dividing Range runs roughly parallel with, and inland from, the coast, and areas west of the range are more arid than the humid coastal regions. The Great Barrier Reef, which is the world's largest coral reef system, runs parallel to the state's Coral Sea coast between the Torres Strait and K'gari (Fraser Island). Queensland's coastline includes the world's three largest sand islands: K'gari (Fraser Island), Moreton, and North Stradbroke. The state contains six World Heritage-listed preservation areas: the Great Barrier Reef along the Coral Sea coast, K'gari (Fraser Island) on the Wide Bay–Burnett region's coastline, the wet tropics in Far North Queensland including the Daintree Rainforest, Lamington National Park in South East Queensland, the Riversleigh fossil sites in North West Queensland, and the Gondwana Rainforests in South East Queensland. The state is divided into several unofficial regions which are commonly used to refer to large areas of the state's vast geography. These include: South East Queensland in the state's coastal extreme south-eastern corner, an urban region which includes the state's three largest cities: capital city Brisbane and popular coastal tourist destinations the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. In some definitions, it also includes the city of Toowoomba. South East Queensland accounts for more than 70% of the state's population. The Darling Downs in the state's inland southeast, which consists of fertile agricultural (particularly cattle grazing) land and in some definitions includes the city of Toowoomba. The region also includes the mountainous Granite Belt, the state's coldest region which occasionally experiences snow. Wide Bay–Burnett in the state's coastal southeast, to the north of the South East Queensland region. It is rich in sugar cane farms and includes the cities of Bundaberg, Hervey Bay as well as K'gari (Fraser Island), the world's largest sand island. Central Queensland on the state's central coastline, which is dominated by cattle farmland and coal mining. It contains the Capricorn Coast and Whitsunday Islands tourist regions, as well as the cities of Rockhampton and Mackay. North Queensland on the state's northern coastline, which is dominated by cattle farmland and mining and which includes the city of Townsville. Far North Queensland on the state's extreme northern coastline along the Cape York Peninsula, which includes tropical rainforest, the state's highest mountain, Mount Bartle Frere, the Atherton Tablelands pastoral region (dominated by sugar cane and tropical fruits), the most visited section of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the city of Cairns. South West Queensland in the state's inland south-west, which is a primarily agricultural region dominated by cattle farmland, and which includes the Channel Country region of intertwining rivulets. Central West Queensland in the state's inland central-west, dominated by cattle farmland and which includes the city of Longreach. The Gulf Country (also known as North West Queensland), in the state's inland north-west along the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is dominated by savanna and mining and includes the city of Mount Isa. Climate Because of its size, there is significant variation in climate across the state. There is ample rainfall along the coastline, with a monsoonal wet season in the tropical north, and humid sub-tropical conditions along the southern coastline. Low rainfall and hot humid summers are typical for the inland and west. Elevated areas in the south-eastern inland can experience temperatures well below freezing in mid-winter providing frost and, rarely, snowfall. The climate of the coastal regions is influenced by warm ocean waters, keeping the region free from extremes of temperature and providing moisture for rainfall. There are six predominant climatic zones in Queensland, based on temperature and humidity: Hot humid summer, warm humid winter (far north and coastal): Cairns, Innisfail Hot humid summer, warm dry winter (north and coastal): Townsville, Mackay Hot humid summer, mild dry winter (coastal elevated areas and coastal south-east): Brisbane, Bundaberg, Rockhampton Hot dry summer, mild dry winter (central inland and north-west): Mt Isa, Emerald, Longreach Hot dry summer, cool dry winter (southern inland): Roma, Charleville, Goondiwindi Warm humid summer, cold dry winter (elevated south-eastern areas): Toowoomba, Warwick, Stanthorpe The annual average climatic statistics for selected Queensland cities are shown below: The coastal far north of the state is the wettest region in Australia, with Mount Bellenden Ker, south of Cairns, holding many Australian rainfall records with its annual average rainfall of over 8 metres (26 ft). Snow is rare in Queensland, although it does fall with some regularity along the far southern border with New South Wales, predominantly in the Stanthorpe district although on rare occasions further north and west. The most northerly snow ever recorded in Australia occurred near Mackay; however, this was exceptional. Natural disasters are often a threat in Queensland: severe tropical cyclones can impact the central and northern coastlines and cause severe damage, with recent examples including Larry, Yasi, Ita and Debbie. Flooding from rain-bearing systems can also be severe and can occur anywhere in Queensland. One of the deadliest and most damaging floods in the history of the state occurred in early 2011. Severe springtime thunderstorms generally affect the south-east and inland of the state and can bring damaging winds, torrential rain, large hail and even tornadoes. The strongest tornado ever recorded in Australia occurred in Queensland near Bundaberg in November 1992. Droughts and bushfires can also occur; however, the latter are generally less severe than those that occur in southern states. The highest official maximum temperature recorded in the state was 49.5 °C (121.1 °F) at Birdsville Police Station on 24 December 1972. The lowest recorded minimum temperature is −10.6 °C (12.9 °F) at Stanthorpe on 23 June 1961 and at The Hermitage (near Warwick) on 12 July 1965. Demographics In December 2021, Queensland had an estimated population of 5,265,043. Approximately half of the state's population lives in Brisbane, and over 70% live in South East Queensland. Nonetheless, Queensland is the second most decentralised state in Australia after Tasmania. Since the 1980s, Queensland has consistently been the fastest-growing state in Australia, as it receives high levels of both international immigration and migration from interstate. There have however been short periods where Victoria and Western Australia have grown faster. Cities Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland. In 2019, the largest cities in the state by population of their Greater Capital City Statistical Area or Significant Urban Area (metropolitan areas) as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics were: Ancestry and immigration Early settlers during the 19th century were largely English, Irish, Scottish and German, while there was a wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe (most notably Italy) in the decades following the second world war. In the 21st century, Asia (most notably China and India) has been the primary source of immigration. At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: The 2016 census showed that 28.9% of Queensland's inhabitants were born overseas. Only 54.8% of inhabitants had both parents born in Australia, with the next most common birthplaces being New Zealand, England, India, Mainland China and South Africa. Brisbane has the 26th largest immigrant population among world metropolitan areas. 4% of the population, or 186,482 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. Language At the 2016 census, 81.2% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.5%), Vietnamese (0.6%), Cantonese (0.5%), Spanish (0.4%) and Italian (0.4%). At the 2021 census, 80.5% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.6%), Vietnamese (0.6%), Punjabi (0.6%) and Spanish (0.6%). Religion At the 2016 census, the most commonly cited religious affiliations were 'No religion' (29.2%), Catholicism (21.7%) and Anglicanism (15.3%). According to the 2021 census, 45.7% of the population follows Christianity, and 41.2% identified as having No religion About 5% of people are affiliated with a non-Christian religion, mainly Buddhism (1.4%), Hinduism (1.3%) and Islam (1.2%). Education Queensland is home to numerous universities. The state's oldest university, the University of Queensland, was established in 1909 and frequently ranks among the world's top 50. Other major universities include Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, the University of Southern Queensland, the University of the Sunshine Coast, James Cook University (which was the state's first university outside of South East Queensland), Central Queensland University and Bond University (which was Australia's first private university). International education is an important industry, with 134,312 international students enrolled in the state in 2018, largely focused on Brisbane. Most of the state's international students are from Asia. At the primary and secondary levels, Queensland is home to numerous state and private schools. Queensland has a public library system which is managed by the State Library of Queensland. Some university libraries are also open to the public. Economy In 2019, Queensland had a gross state product of A$357,044 million, the third-highest in the nation after New South Wales and Victoria. The construction of sea ports and railways along Queensland's coast in the 19th century set up the foundations for the state's export-oriented mining and agricultural sectors. Since the 1980s, a sizeable influx of interstate and overseas migrants, large amounts of federal government investment, increased mining of vast mineral deposits and an expanding aerospace sector have contributed to the state's economic growth. Primary industries include bananas, pineapples, peanuts, a wide variety of other tropical and temperate fruit and vegetables, grain crops, wineries, cattle raising, cotton, sugarcane, and wool. The mining industry includes bauxite, coal, silver, lead, zinc, gold and copper. Secondary industries are mostly further processing of the above-mentioned primary produce. For example, bauxite is shipped by sea from Weipa and converted to alumina at Gladstone. There is also copper refining and the refining of sugar cane to sugar at a number of mills along the eastern coastline. Major tertiary industries are retail, tourism, and international education. In 2018, there were 134,312 international students enrolled in the state, largely focused on Brisbane. Most of the state's international students are from Asia. Brisbane is categorised as a global city, and is among Asia-Pacific cities with largest GDPs. It has strengths in mining, banking, insurance, transportation, information technology, real estate and food. Some of the largest companies headquartered in Brisbane, all among Australia's largest, include Suncorp Group, Virgin Australia, Aurizon, Bank of Queensland, Flight Centre, CUA, Sunsuper, QSuper, Domino's Pizza Enterprises, Star Entertainment Group, ALS, TechnologyOne, NEXTDC, Super Retail Group, New Hope Coal, Jumbo Interactive, National Storage, Collins Foods and Boeing Australia. Tourism As a result of its varied landscapes, warm climate, and abundant natural environment, tourism is Queensland's leading tertiary industry with millions of interstate and international visitors visiting the state each year. The industry generates $8.8 billion annually, accounting for 4.5% of Queensland's Gross State Product. It has an annual export of $4.0 billion annually. The sector directly employs about 5.7% of Queensland citizens. Accommodation in Queensland caters for nearly 22% of the total expenditure, followed by restaurants/meals (15%), airfares (11%), fuel (11%) and shopping/gifts (11%). The most visited tourist destinations of Queensland include Brisbane (including Moreton and South Stradbroke islands and the Gold Coast) as well as the Sunshine Coast, the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Port Douglas, the Daintree Rainforest, K'gari and the Whitsunday Islands. Brisbane is the third most popular destination in Australia following Sydney and Melbourne. Major attractions in its metropolitan area include South Bank Parklands, the Queensland Cultural Centre (including the Queensland Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and State Library of Queensland), City Hall, the Story Bridge, the Howard Smith Wharves, ANZAC Square, St John's Cathedral, Fortitude Valley (including James Street and Chinatown), West End, the Teneriffe woolstores precinct, the Brisbane River and its Riverwalk network, the City Botanic Gardens, Roma Street Parkland, New Farm Park (including the Brisbane Powerhouse), the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and park, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the Mount Coot-tha Reserve (including Mount Coot-tha Lookout and Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens), the D'Aguilar Range and National Park, as well as Moreton Bay (including Moreton, North Stradbroke and Bribie islands, and coastal suburbs such as Shorncliffe, Wynnum and those on the Redcliffe Peninsula). The Gold Coast is home to numerous popular surf beaches such as those at Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads. It also includes the largest concentration of amusement parks in Australia, including Dreamworld, Movie World, Sea World, Wet 'n' Wild and WhiteWater World, as well as the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. The Gold Coast's hinterland includes Lamington National Park in the McPherson Range. The Sunshine Coast includes popular surfing and beach destinations including Noosa Heads and Mooloolaba. It is also home to UnderWater World and Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Its hinterland includes the Glass House Mountains National Park. Cairns is renowned as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Far North Queensland (including Port Douglas) and the Daintree Rainforest. The Whitsunday Islands off the coast of North Queensland are a popular tourist destinations for their resort facilities and access to the Great Barrier Reef. Politics and government One of the six founding states of Australia, Queensland has been a federated state subject to the Australian Constitution since 1 January 1901. It may legislate on all matters not ceded in the Australian Constitution to the federal government. It is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Constitution of Queensland sets out the operation of the state's government. The state's constitution contains several entrenched provisions which cannot be changed in the absence of a referendum. There is also a statutory bill of rights, the Queensland Human Rights Act 2019. Queensland's system of government is influenced by the Westminster system and Australia's federal system of government. The government is separated into three branches: Legislature: the unicameral Parliament of Queensland, comprising the Legislative Assembly and the Monarch (represented by the Governor); Executive: the Executive Council of Queensland, which formalises decisions of the Cabinet of Queensland, which is composed of the Premier and other ministers of state appointed by the Governor on the advice of Parliament; Judiciary: the Supreme Court and other state courts, whose judges are appointed by the Governor on the advice of Parliament. Executive authority is nominally vested in the Governor of Queensland (currently Jeannette Young) who represents and is appointed by the Monarch (currently Charles III) on the advice of the Premier of Queensland. The Premier, who is the state's Head of government, along with the Cabinet of Queensland (whose decisions are formalised by the Executive Council), exercise executive authority in practice. The Premier is appointed by the Governor and must have support of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The Premier is in practice a leading member of the Legislative Assembly and parliamentary leader of his or her political party, or coalition of parties, and members of the Cabinet will be drawn from the same party or coalition. The current Premier and Deputy Premier are Steven Miles and Cameron Dick of the Labor Party respectively. Government House at Paddington in Brisbane is the seat of the Governor, having replaced Old Government House at Gardens Point in Brisbane's CBD in the early 20th century. The executive branch is simply referred to as the Queensland Government. Legislative authority is exercised by the Queensland Parliament which uniquely for Australian states is unicameral, containing only one house, the Legislative Assembly. The Parliament was bicameral until 1922 when the Legislative Council was abolished by the Labor "suicide squad", so called because they were appointed for the purpose of voting to abolish their own offices. Bills receive royal assent from the Governor before being passed into law. The Parliament's seat is at Parliament House at Gardens Point in Brisbane's CBD. Members of the Legislative Assembly represent 93 electoral districts. Elections in Queensland are held at the end of each fixed four-year parliamentary term and are determined by instant-runoff voting. The state's judiciary consists of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the District Court of Queensland, established by the Queensland Constitution, as well as the Magistrates Court of Queensland and other courts and tribunals established by legislation. Cases may be appealed to the High Court of Australia. As with all Australian states and territories, Queensland has a common law legal system. The Supreme and District courts are headquartered at the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law in Brisbane's CBD. The state's politics are traditionally regarded as being conservative relative to other states. Historically, the lack of an upper house, the "Bjelkemander" (a malapportion favouring rural electoral districts) as well as the former system of optional preferential voting has meant that Queensland had a long tradition of domination by strong-willed, populist premiers, often accused of authoritarian tendencies, holding office for long periods. This tendency was exemplified by the government of the state's longest-serving Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Local government Local government is the mechanism by which local government areas can manage their own affairs to the extent permitted by the Local Government Act 2009. Queensland is divided into 77 local government areas, which are created by the state government under the legislation. Each local government area has a council responsible for providing a range of local services and utilities. Local councils derive their income from both rates and charges on resident ratepayers, and grants and subsidies from the state and federal governments. Federal representation In the federal Parliament of Australia, Queensland accounts for 30 of the 151 electoral divisions in the House of Representatives (based on population size) and 12 of the 76 seats in the Senate (based on equality between the states). The current partisan makeup of Queensland's House of Representatives delegation is 21 Liberal National, 5 Labor, 3 Australian Greens, and 1 Katter's Australian Party. The current partisan makeup of Queensland's Senate delegation is 5 Liberal National, 3 Labor, 2 One Nation, and 2 Green. Culture Queensland is home to major art galleries including the Queensland Art Gallery and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art as well as cultural institutions such as the Queensland Ballet, Opera Queensland, Queensland Theatre Company, and Queensland Symphony Orchestra, all based at the Queensland Cultural Centre in Brisbane. The state is the origin of musicians such as the Bee Gees, the Go-Betweens, the Veronicas, the Saints, Savage Garden, and Sheppard as well as writers such as David Malouf, Nick Earls and Li Cunxin. Major annual cultural events include the Royal Queensland Exhibition (known locally as the Ekka), an agricultural exhibition held each August at the Brisbane Showgrounds as well as the Brisbane Festival, which includes one of the nation's largest annual fireworks displays called 'Riverfire', and which is held each September. Sport The state of Queensland is represented in all of Australia's national sporting competitions and it is also host to a number of domestic and international sporting events. The most popular winter and summer team sports are rugby league and cricket, respectively. In the National Rugby League, the Brisbane Broncos, North Queensland Cowboys, The Dolphins and Gold Coast Titans are based in the state. Rugby league's annual State of Origin series is a major event in the Queensland sporting calendar, with the Queensland Maroons representing the state. In cricket, the Queensland Bulls represent the state in the Sheffield Shield and the Ryobi One Day Cup, while the Brisbane Heat compete in the Big Bash League. Queensland is also home to the Brisbane Lions and the Gold Coast Suns in the Australian Football League (Australian rules football), and the Brisbane Roar FC in the A-League (soccer). In netball, the Queensland Firebirds went undefeated in the 2011 season as they went on to win the Grand Final. Other sports teams are the Brisbane Bullets and the Cairns Taipans, who compete in the National Basketball League. The state is represented by the Queensland Reds in the Super Rugby (rugby union). Swimming is also a popular sport in Queensland, with many Australian team members and international medalists hailing from the state. Brisbane will host the 2032 Summer Olympics, marking the third time Australia hosted the Olympic Games following Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000. Major recurring sporting events hosted in Queensland include: the Gold Coast 600 (motorsport; since 1994), the Gold Coast Marathon (athletics; since 1979), the NRL All Stars Game (rugby league; since 2010), the Townsville 400 (motorsport; since 2009), the Quicksilver Pro and Roxy Pro (surfing) and Australian PGA Championship (golf; since 2000). Symbols and emblems The official state emblems of Queensland are prescribed in the Emblems of Queensland Act 2005. Queen Victoria granted the Queensland Coat of Arms to the Colony of Queensland in 1893, making it the oldest State Arms in Australia. It depicts Queensland's primary industries in the 19th century with a sheaf of wheat, the heads of a bull and a ram, and a column of gold rising from a heap of quartz. Two stalks of sugar cane which surround the state badge at the top, and below is Queensland's state motto, Audax at Fidelis, which means "Bold but Faithful". In 1977, Queen Elizabeth II granted the supporting animals, the brolga and the red deer. In November 2003 maroon was officially named Queensland's state colour, after many years of association with Queensland sporting teams. The koala was officially named the animal or faunal, emblem of Queensland in 1971 after a newspaper poll showed strong public support. The Queensland Government introduced the poll due to a proposal by state tourism ministers for all states to adopt a faunal emblem. In January 1986, the brolga was announced as the official bird emblem of Queensland, after many years on the Coat of Arms. The Cooktown orchid became known as Queensland's floral emblem in 1959, during celebrations to mark the state's centenary, and the Barrier Reef Anemone Fish was officially named as Queensland's aquatic emblem in March 2005. The sapphire was named the official state gem for Queensland in August 1985. Infrastructure Transport Queensland is served by several National Highways and, particularly in South East Queensland, a network of freeways such as the M1. The Department of Transport & Main Roads oversees the development and operation of main roads and public transport, including taxis and local aviation. Principal rail services are provided by Queensland Rail, predominantly between the major centres east of the Great Dividing Range. Freight rail services in Queensland have been provided mostly by Aurizon and Pacific National, with interstate intermodal services provided by Pacific National and SCT Logistics. Major seaports include the Port of Brisbane, Australia's third busiest by value of goods, as well as those at Gladstone, Townsville, and Bundaberg. There are large coal export facilities at Hay Point, Gladstone, and Abbot Point. Major sugar export facilities are located at Lucinda and Mackay. Brisbane Airport is the main international and domestic gateway serving the state, and is the third busiest in Australia. Other international airports include the Gold Coast Airport, Cairns International Airport, and Townsville Airport. Regional airports with scheduled domestic flights include Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport, Great Barrier Reef Airport, Hervey Bay Airport, Bundaberg Airport, Mackay Airport, Mount Isa Airport, Proserpine / Whitsunday Coast Airport, Rockhampton Airport, and Sunshine Coast Airport. South East Queensland has an integrated public transport system operated by Translink, which provides services bus, rail, light rail and Brisbane's ferry services through Queensland Rail and contracted operators. The region is divided into seven Fare zones radiating outwards from the Brisbane central business district, which is the central hub for the system. The Queensland Rail City network consists of 152 train stations along 13 suburban rail lines and across the region, and predominantly within Brisbane's metropolitan area. There is also a large bus network including Brisbane's large dedicated bus rapid transit network, the Brisbane busway network. Brisbane's popular ferry services include the CityCat, Cross River, and CityHopper services which have dedicated wharves along the Brisbane River. The G:link, Queensland's only light rail network, operates on the Gold Coast. The new Queensland Cross River Rail is a metro network that is currently under development within Brisbane and is part of the crucial infrastructure project to prepare the city for the 2032 Olympic games. It will be a transformative addition to the state's transportation infrastructure, set to revolutionise the way people move within Brisbane and its surrounding areas. Operating as a crucial link between the north and south sides of the city, the Cross River Rail introduces an innovative approach to urban mobility. It features state-of-the-art electric trains running on dedicated tracks, providing fast, efficient, and sustainable transit options for commuters. With improved connectivity, reduced congestion, and enhanced accessibility, this rail project aims to enhance the overall quality of life for residents and visitors alike, contributing significantly to Queensland's continued development and growth. Other utilities Queensland Health operates and administers the state's public health system. There are sixteen regional Health and Hospital Services corresponding to geographical regions which are responsible for delivering public health services within their regions. Major public hospitals include the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Princess Alexandra Hospital, the Mater Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital, and the Queensland Children's Hospital in Brisbane, as well as the Townsville University Hospital, Cairns Hospital, Gold Coast Hospital and Gold Coast University Hospital in the regional cities. There are smaller public hospitals, as well as private hospitals, around the state. See also Outline of Australia Index of Australia-related articles State of North Queensland (Proposed state) Notes References Sources Bottoms, Timothy (2013). Conspiracy of Silence: Queensland's frontier killing times. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74331-382-4. Broome, Richard (1988). "The Struggle for Australia : Aboriginal-European Warfare, 1770–1930". In McKernan, Michael; Browne, Margaret; Australian War Memorial (eds.). Australia Two Centuries of War & Peace. Canberra, A.C.T.: Australian War Memorial in association with Allen and Unwin, Australia. pp. 92–120. ISBN 0-642-99502-8. Connor, John (2008). "Frontier Wars". In Dennis, Peter; et al. (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (Second ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand. ISBN 978-0-19-551784-2. Coulthard-Clark, Chris D. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Australia's Battles (Second ed.). Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1865086347. Ørsted-Jensen, Robert (2011). Frontier History Revisited – Queensland and the 'History War'. Cooparoo, Brisbane, Qld: Lux Mundi Publishing. ISBN 9781466386822. External links Geographic data related to Queensland at OpenStreetMap Government of Queensland State Archives, Government of Queensland State Library, Government of Queensland Far North Queensland (historical footage), AU: National Film and Sound Archive, 21 August 2012, archived from the original on 31 October 2020, retrieved 31 December 2020. Daintrees, Richard, Glass plates, AU: National Museum. Works by Queensland at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Queensland at the Internet Archive State Library of Queensland holds the Growing up in Queensland (GUiQ) 2018 archive, a project conducted by the Queensland Family and Child Commission. The inaugural GUiQ was conducted in 2018 and gathered information about the thoughts and experiences of children and young people aged 4–18 years in Queensland. Queensland News Today - Online Digital Newspaper

Northern_Territory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory

The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Australia to the west (129th meridian east), South Australia to the south (26th parallel south), and Queensland to the east (138th meridian east). To the north, the Northern Territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and various other islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The NT covers 1,347,791 square kilometres (520,385 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 249,000 as of December 2021 – fewer than half as many people as in Tasmania. The largest population centre is the capital city of Darwin, having about 52.6% of the Territory's population. The largest inland settlement is Alice Springs with a population of about 25,000 people. The archaeological history of the Northern Territory may have begun more than 60,000 years ago when humans first settled this region of the Sahul Continent. From at least the 18th century, Makassan traders began a relationship with the indigenous people of the Northern Territory around the trading of trepang. The coast of the Territory was first seen by Europeans in the 17th century. The British were the first Europeans to attempt to settle the coastal regions. After three failed attempts to establish a settlement (1824–1828, 1838–1849, and 1864–1866), success was achieved in 1869 with the establishment of a settlement at Port Darwin. The economy is based largely on mining and petroleum, which during 2018–2019 contributed 23% of the gross state product, or $5.68 billion, accounting for 92.4% of exports. The Territory's population is concentrated in coastal regions and along the Stuart Highway. Besides the capital of Darwin, the major settlements are (in order of size) Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine, Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek. Residents of the Northern Territory are often known as "Territorians". History Pre-colonial Humans have lived in the present area of the Northern Territory since at least 48,400 to 68,700 years ago. From the 17th or 18th century CE onwards, traders from Sulawesi established extensive seasonal trade links with the Indigenous peoples of Kimberley region, the modern-day Northern Territory, and Arnhem Land. They collected trepang (sea cucumber) for Chinese markets and introduced several goods and technologies to the Indigenous peoples. There is significant evidence of contact with Makassan fishers in examples of Indigenous Australian rock art and bark painting of northern Australia, with the Makassan perahu a prominent feature. Colonial administration With the coming of the British, there were four early attempts to settle the harsh environment of the northern coast, of which three failed in starvation and despair. The land now occupied by the Northern Territory was part of colonial New South Wales from 1825 to 1863, except for a brief time from February to December 1846, when it was part of the short-lived colony of North Australia. The Northern Territory was part of South Australia from 1863 to 1911 and, under their administration the Overland Telegraph Line was constructed between 1870 and 1872. From its establishment in 1869 the Port of Darwin was the major Territory supply for many decades. A railway was built between Palmerston and Pine Creek between 1883 and 1889 as part of the North Australia Railway. The economic pattern of cattle raising and mining was established so that by 1911 there were 513,000 cattle. Victoria River Downs Station, 686 kilometres (426 mi) west of Darwin, was at one time the largest cattle station in the world. Gold was found at Grove Hill in 1872 and at Pine Creek (in 1871), Brocks Creek, Burundi, and copper was found at Daly River. Federal territory On 1 January 1911, a decade after Federation, the Northern Territory was separated from South Australia, alongside the Australian Capital Territory from NSW, and transferred to federal control. Alfred Deakin opined at this time "[t]o me the question has been not so much commercial as national, first, second, third and last. Either we must accomplish the peopling of the northern territory or submit to its transfer to some other nation." In late 1912 there was growing sentiment that the name "Northern Territory" was unsatisfactory. The names "Kingsland" (after King George V and to correspond with Queensland), "Centralia" and "Territoria" were proposed with Kingsland becoming the preferred choice in 1913. However, the name change never went ahead. Division into North Australia and Central Australia For a brief time between 1927 and 1931 the Northern Territory was divided into North Australia and Central Australia at the 20th parallel of South latitude. Soon after this time, parts of the Northern Territory were considered in the Kimberley Plan as a possible site for the establishment of a Jewish Homeland, understandably considered the "Unpromised Land". During the early 20th century, the southern part of the Territory was considered the "last frontier" of Australian settlement, where 'sympathetic whites' hoped that Aboriginal traditions would continue to be practised. Conflicts arose due to the resource scarcity and the fragility of the cattle industry and the area was rife with Indigenous 'bush bandits' who speared cattle for food for want of employment by ranchers. This was exacerbated by a drought between 1925 and 1929 that led to the deaths of 85 per cent of the children at the Hermannsburg Mission in Central Australia. In the meantime, white attitudes towards Aboriginal people were paternalistic, torn between the desire to help them in times of hunger and the fear of "pauperizing" them and reducing their incentives to work. In the 1928 Coniston massacre, punitive expeditions were carried out by white colonists led by Northern Territory Police constable William George Murray in response to the murder of a dingo hunter, resulting in the deaths of dozens to hundreds of people of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye groups. This was one of many massacres of Aboriginal people in the region. For more information see: List of massacres of Indigenous Australians. Post-World War II During World War II, most of the Top End was placed under military government. This is the only time since Federation that part of an Australian state or territory has been under military control. After the war, control for the entire area was handed back to the Commonwealth. The Bombing of Darwin occurred on 19 February 1942. It was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. Evidence of Darwin's World War II history is found at a variety of preserved sites in and around the city, including ammunition bunkers, airstrips, oil tunnels and museums. The port was damaged in the 1942 Japanese air raids. It was subsequently restored. In the late 1960s improved roads in adjoining States linking with the territory, port delays and rapid economic development led to uncertainty in port and regional infrastructure development. As a result of the Commission of Enquiry established by the Administrator, port working arrangements were changed, berth investment deferred and a port masterplan prepared. Extension of rail transport was then not considered because of low freight volumes. Indigenous Australians had struggled for rights to fair wages and land. An important event in this struggle was the strike and walk off by the Gurindji people at Wave Hill Cattle Station in 1966. The Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights (NTCAR) supported the strikers and provided publicity. The Federal government of Gough Whitlam set up the Woodward Royal Commission in February 1973, to enquire into how land rights might be achieved in the Northern Territory. Justice Woodward's first report in July 1973 recommended that a Central Land Council and a Northern Land Council be established to present to him the views of Aboriginal people. A Land Rights Bill was drafted, and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was passed by the Fraser government on 16 December 1976 and began operation on 26 January 1977). The Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights was disestablished in 1976. In 1974, from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, Darwin was devastated by tropical Cyclone Tracy. Cyclone Tracy killed 71 people, caused A$837 million in damage (approximately A$6.85 billion as of 2018) and destroyed more than 70 per cent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 per cent of houses. Tracy left more than 41,000 out of the 47,000 inhabitants of the city homeless. The city was rebuilt with much-improved construction codes and is a modern, landscaped metropolis today. In 1978 the Territory was granted Self Government with a Legislative Assembly headed by a Chief Minister. The Administrator of the Northern Territory is another important position in the government and they act as the King's representative in the Territory and a part of their role is appointing the Chief Minister. The Territory also publishes official notices in its own Government Gazette. In the 1980s, conservation-oriented areas in the Northern Territory such as Kakadu National Park and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for their mix of natural heritage and Aboriginal culture. During 1995–96 the Northern Territory was briefly one of the few places in the world with legal voluntary euthanasia, until the Federal Parliament overturned the legislation. Before the over-riding legislation was enacted, four people used the law supported by Dr Philip Nitschke. Geography There are many very small settlements scattered across the Territory, but the larger population centres are located on the single paved road that links Darwin to southern Australia, the Stuart Highway, known to locals simply as "the track". The Territory is home to many spectacular natural rock formations, including Uluru / Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta / The Olgas in the Central Australian region and Kakadu National Park in the north. Each of these sites are sacred to the local Aboriginal people and which have become major International tourist attractions and recognised UNESCO World Heritage sites. The northern portion of the Territory is principally tropical savannas, composed of several distinct ecoregions – Arnhem Land tropical savanna, Carpentaria tropical savanna, Kimberley tropical savanna, Victoria Plains tropical savanna, and Mitchell Grass Downs. The southern portion of the Territory is covered in deserts and xeric shrublands, including the Great Sandy-Tanami desert, Simpson Desert, and Central Ranges xeric scrub. There are also an extensive series of river systems in the Territory. These rivers include: the Alligator Rivers, Daly River, Finke River, McArthur River, Roper River, Todd River and Victoria River. The Hay River is a river south-west of Alice Springs, with the Marshall River, Arthur Creek, Camel Creek and Bore Creek flowing into it. National parks Climate The Northern Territory has two distinctive climate zones. The northern end, including Darwin, has a tropical climate with high humidity and two seasons, the wet (October to April) and dry season (May to September). During the dry season nearly every day is warm and sunny, and afternoon humidity averages around 30%. There is very little rainfall between May and September. In the coolest months of June and July, the daily minimum temperature may dip as low as 14 °C (57 °F), but very rarely lower, and frost has never been recorded. The wet season is associated with tropical cyclones and monsoon rains. The majority of rainfall occurs between December and March (the southern hemisphere summer), when thunderstorms are common and afternoon relative humidity averages over 70% during the wettest months. On average more than 1,570 mm (62 in) of rain falls in the north. Rainfall is highest in north-west coastal areas, where rainfall averages from 1,800 to 2,100 mm (71 to 83 in). The central region is the desert centre of the country, which includes Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock), and is semi-arid with little rain usually falling during the hottest months from October to March. Seasons are more distinct in central Australia, with very hot summers and cool winters. Frost is recorded a few times a year. The region receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of rain per year. The highest temperature recorded in the territory was 48.3 °C (118.9 °F) at Finke on 1 and 2 January 1960. The lowest temperature was −7.5 °C (18.5 °F) at Alice Springs on 17 July 1976. Governance Parliament The Northern Territory Parliament is one of the three unicameral parliaments in the country. Based on the Westminster System, it consists of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly which was created in 1974, replacing the Northern Territory Legislative Council. It also produces the Northern Territory of Australia Government Gazette. The Northern Territory Legislative Council was the partly elected governing body from 1947 until its replacement by the fully elected Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in 1974. The total enrolment for the 1947 election was 4,443. The Northern Territory was split into five electorates: Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Batchelor, and Stuart. While this assembly exercises powers similar to those of the parliaments of the states of Australia, it does so by legislated devolution of powers from the Commonwealth Government, rather than by any constitutional right. As such, the Commonwealth Government retains the right to legislate for the territory, including the power to override legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly. The Monarch is represented by the Administrator of the Northern Territory, who performs a role similar to that of a state governor. Twenty-five members of the Legislative Assembly are elected to four-year terms from single-member electorates. Numerous times since self government was granted there has been agitation for full statehood within the region. A referendum of voters in the Northern Territory was held on the issue in 1998, which resulted in a 'no' vote. This was a shock to both the Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments, as opinion polls showed most Territorians supported statehood. But under the Australian Constitution, the federal government may set the terms of entry to full statehood. The Northern Territory was offered three senators, rather than the twelve guaranteed to original states (because of the difference in populations, equal numbers of Senate seats would mean a Territorian's vote for a senator would have been worth more than 30 such votes in New South Wales or Victoria). Alongside what was cited as an arrogant approach adopted by then chief minister Shane Stone, it is believed that most Territorians, regardless of their general views on statehood, were reluctant to adopt the particular offer that was made. Chief minister and cabinet The chief minister is the head of government of a self-governing territory (the head of a state government is a premier). The chief minister is appointed by the administrator, who in normal circumstances appoints the leader of whichever party holds the majority of seats in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. The current chief minister is Lia Finocchiaro of the Country Liberal Party. The CLP defeated Territory Labor to win office on 24 August 2024. Administrator The Northern Territory became self-governing on 1 July 1978 under its own administrator appointed by the Governor-General of Australia. The federal government, not the NT government, advises the governor-general on the appointment of the administrator, but by convention consults first with the Territory government. The current administrator is Hugh Heggie who commenced his three-year term on 31 January 2023; he had previously served as the Northern Territory’s Chief Health Officer. Federal government The Northern Territory is represented in the federal parliament by two members in the House of Representatives and two members in the Senate. As of May 2022, resulting from the 2022 federal election, Marion Scrymgour from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Lingiari and Luke Gosling from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Solomon serve in the House of Representatives, and Malarndirri McCarthy from the ALP and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the Country Liberal Party serve in the Senate. Local government The Northern Territory is divided into seventeen local government areas: two cities, three municipalities, nine regions, and three shires. Shire, city and town councils are responsible for functions delegated by the Northern Territory parliament, such as road infrastructure and waste management. Council revenue comes mostly from property taxes and government grants. Aboriginal land councils Aboriginal land councils in the Northern Territory are groups of Aboriginal landowners, set up under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976. Political parties The two historically dominant political parties in the Northern Territory are the conservative Country Liberal Party which governed the Territory from 1974 to 2001, from 2012 to 2016 and Since 2024, and the social-democratic Australian Labor Party which governed the Territory from 2001 to 2012 and from 2016 to 2024. Minor parties that are also active in the NT include the Northern Territory Greens, the Shooters and Fishers Party and various others. It is common for independent politicians to win elections. The CLP's rule was once so tight, that a former minister once said the CLP had a "'rightful inheritance of being the party that runs this place'". The Northern Territory is the only branch of the Australian Greens to have never had any parliamentary representation as of 2024. As fewer parties and candidates contest Northern Territory general elections than they do Australian federal elections in the Northern Territory, the CLP, Labor and independents usually have a higher vote share at territory elections than at federal elections in the Northern Territory due to the absence of right-wing minor parties such as Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the fact that the Greens do not run in every seat at territory elections. Demographics The population of the Northern Territory at the 2011 Australian census was 211,945, a 10 per cent increase from the 2006 census. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated a June 2015 resident population of 244,300, taking into account residents overseas or interstate. The territory's population represents 1% of the total population of Australia. The Northern Territory's population is the youngest in Australia and has the largest proportion (23.2%) under 15 years of age and the smallest proportion (5.7%) aged 65 and over. The median age of residents of the Northern Territory is 31 years, six years younger than the national median age. Indigenous Australians make up 30,3% of population and own some 49% of the land. The life expectancy of Aboriginal Australians is well below that of non-Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory, a fact that is mirrored elsewhere in Australia. ABS statistics suggest that Indigenous Australians die about 11 years earlier than the average non-Indigenous Australian. There are Aboriginal communities in many parts of the territory, the largest ones being the Pitjantjatjara near Uluru / Ayers Rock, the Arrernte near Alice Springs, the Luritja between those two, the Warlpiri further north, and the Yolngu in eastern Arnhem Land. In 2019, 147,255 people lived in Darwin, an overwhelming majority of the Territory's population. Despite this, the Northern Territory is the least urbanised jurisdiction in the Commonwealth (followed by Tasmania). Cities and towns Ancestry and immigration At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were: 31.2% of the population was born overseas at the 2016 census. The five largest groups of overseas-born were from the Philippines (2.6%), England (2.4%), New Zealand (2%), India (1.6%) and Greece (0.6%). 25.5% of the population, or 58,248 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016. Languages At the 2021 census, 57.3% of the population spoke only English at home. The other languages most commonly spoken at home were Kriol (2.2%), Djambarrpuyngu (1.7%), Greek (1.4%) and Nepali (1.3%). There are more than 100 Aboriginal languages and dialects spoken in the Northern Territory, in addition to English which is most common in cities such as Darwin or Alice Springs. Major indigenous languages spoken in the Northern Territory include Murrinh-patha and Ngangikurrungurr in the northwest around Wadeye, Warlpiri and Warumungu in the centre around Tennant Creek, Arrernte around Alice Springs, Pintupi-Luritja to the south east, Pitjantjatjara in the south near Uluru / Ayers Rock, Yolngu Matha to the far north in Arnhem Land (where the dialect Djambarrpuyngu of Dhuwal is considered a lingua franca), and Burarra, Maung, Iwaidja and Kunwinjku in the centre north and on Croker Island and the Goulburn Islands. Tiwi is spoken on Melville Island and Bathurst Island. Literature in many of these languages is available in the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages. Religion In the 2021 census, Christianity is the major Religious affiliation in Northern Territory followed by 40.5% of its population. In 1971, Christianity was followed by 70.2% of the population and it has been declining since, while percentage of people who identified as having no religious affiliation has increased from 17.9% in 1971 to 38.5% in 2021. Hinduism is the territory's largest non-Christian religion (2.7%), followed by Buddhism (2.1%) and Islam (1.4%). Education Primary and secondary A Northern Territory school education consists of six years of primary schooling, including one transition year, three years of middle schooling, and three years of secondary schooling. In the beginning of 2007, the Northern Territory introduced Middle School for Years 7–9 and High School for Years 10–12. Northern Territory children generally begin school at age five. On completing secondary school, students earn the Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training (NTCET). Students who successfully complete their secondary education also receive a tertiary entrance ranking, or ATAR score, to determine university admittance. Northern Territory schools are either publicly or privately funded. Public schools, also known as state or government schools, are funded and run directly by the Department of Education. Private fee-paying schools include schools run by the Catholic Church and independent schools, some elite ones similar to English public schools. Some Northern Territory Independent schools are affiliated with Protestant, Lutheran, Anglican, Greek Orthodox or Seventh-day Adventist Churches, but include non-church schools and an Indigenous school. As of 2009, the Northern Territory had 151 public schools, 15 Catholic schools and 21 independent schools. 39,492 students were enrolled in schools around the territory with 29,175 in public schools, and 9,882 in independent schools. The Northern Territory has about 4,000 full-time teachers. Tertiary The Northern Territory has one university which opened in 1989 under the name of the Northern Territory University. Now renamed as the Charles Darwin University, it had about 19,000 students enrolled: about 5,500 higher education students and about 13,500 students on vocational education and training (VET) courses. The first tertiary institution in the territory was the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education which was established in the mid-1960s. Libraries and archives Library & Archives NT is the Northern Territory's public research library and archival organisation and it supports the development of library services across the Territory by supporting public libraries. Library & Archives NT was formed in 2019 following the merge of the Northern Territory Archives Service and the Northern Territory Library. The National Archives of Australia also have a repository in Darwin, this is collocated with the Library & Archives NT repository at the Northern Territory Archives Centre. Economy Mining The Northern Territory's economy is largely driven by mining, which is concentrated on energy producing minerals, petroleum and energy and contributes around $2.5 billion to the gross state product and employs over 4,600 people. Mining accounts for 14.9% of the gross state product in 2014–15 compared to just 7% nationally. In recent years, largely due to the effect of major infrastructure projects and mine expansions, construction has overtaken mining as the largest single industry in the territory. Construction, mining and manufacturing, and government and community services, combine to account for about half of the territory's gross state product (GSP), compared to about a third of national gross domestic product (GDP). The economy has grown considerably over the past decade, from a value of $15 billion in 2004–05 to over $22 billion in 2014–15. In 2012–13 the territory economy expanded by 5.6%, over twice the level of national growth, and in 2014–15 it grew by 10.5%, four times the national growth rate. Between 2003 and 2006 the gross state product had risen from $8.67 billion to $11.476 billion, an increase of 32.4%. During the three years to 2006–2007 the Northern Territory gross state product grew by an average annual rate of 5.5%. Gross state product per capita in the Northern Territory ($72,496) is higher than any Australian state or territory and is also higher than the gross domestic product per capita for Australia ($54,606). The Northern Territory's exports were up 12.9% or $681 million in 2012–13. The largest contributor to the territory's exports was: mineral fuels (largely LNG), crude materials (mainly mineral ores) and food and live animals (primarily live cattle). The main international markets for territory exports are Japan, China, Indonesia, the United States and Korea. Imports to the Northern Territory totalled $2,887.8 million which consisted of mainly machinery and equipment manufacturing (58.4%) and petroleum, coal, chemical and associated product manufacturing (17.0%). The principal mining operations are bauxite at Gove Peninsula where the production is estimated to increase 52.1% to $254 million in 2007–08, manganese at Groote Eylandt, production is estimated to increase 10.5% to $1.1 billion which will be helped by the newly developed mines include Bootu Creek and Frances Creek, gold which is estimated to increase 21.7 per cent to $672 million at the Union Reefs plant and uranium at Ranger Uranium Mine. Tourism Tourism is an important economic driver for the territory and a significant industry in regional areas. Iconic destinations such as Uluru / Ayers Rock and Kakadu make the Northern Territory a popular destination for domestic and international travellers. Diverse landscapes, waterfalls, wide open spaces, aboriginal culture and wild and untamed wildlife provides the opportunity for visitors to immerse themselves in the natural wonder that the Northern Territory offers. In 2015, the territory received a total of about 1.6 million domestic and international visitors contributing an estimated $2.0 billion to the local economy. Holiday visitors made up the majority of total visitation (about 792,000 visitors). Tourism has strong links to other sectors in the economy including accommodation and food services, retail trade, recreation and culture, and transport. Wide Open Space is an annual festival of music, arts and culture that takes place over three days at the Ross River Resort in the McDonnell Ranges, around 80 km (50 mi) east of Alice Springs. over three days in April/May. Other industries The Northern Territory announced that it will undertake a project which will benefit its marine industry, including the development of a new Marine Industry Park near Darwin. Transport The Northern Territory is the most sparsely populated state or territory in Australia. The NT has a connected network of sealed roads, including two national highways, linking with adjoining states and connecting the major territory population centres, and other important centres such as Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. The Stuart Highway, once known as "The Track", runs north to south, connecting Darwin and Alice Springs to Adelaide. Some of the sealed roads are single-lane bitumen. Many unsealed (dirt) roads connect the more remote settlements. The fatigue resulting from long-distance driving and the hazards inherent in dirt roads, wildlife, water crossings and wild weather have led the Northern Territory Government to pursue road safety campaigns in English and several Aboriginal languages. Persuading people to drive at the right speed for the road conditions has been a key goal. As of 2021, the Northern Territory's road vehicle speed limit in built-up areas was 60 kilometres per hour unless the town had gazetted a lower default speed limit: many had chosen 50 km/h or lower. Outside most built-up areas the default speed limit was 110 km/h unless a speed limit sign stated otherwise. Reflecting the nature of the topography and very low population density, some sections of the Arnhem, Barkly, Stuart and Victoria highways had a maximum speed of 130 km/h. In 2004, a standard gauge railway was opened between Alice Springs and Darwin, completing the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor and bringing to fruition the dream of a transcontinental railway initiated in 1878 with the Central Australia Railway from the south and the North Australia Railway from the north – but with a gap of more than 800 km (500 mi) between Alice Springs and Birdum still to be bridged when the antique 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in) narrow-gauge railway was closed in 1976. The line carries fast freight trains and one passenger train: The Ghan experiential tourism train that runs between Darwin and Adelaide, stopping in the NT at Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and Kulgera. Darwin International Airport is the major domestic and international airport for the territory. Several smaller airports are also scattered throughout the territory and are served by smaller airlines, including Alice Springs Airport, Ayers Rock Airport, Katherine Airport and Tennant Creek Airport. Media Print The Northern Territory has only one daily tabloid newspaper, News Corporation's Northern Territory News, or NT News. The Sunday Territorian is the sister paper to the NT News and is the only dedicated Sunday tabloid newspaper in the Northern Territory. The Centralian Advocate is circulated around the Alice Springs region twice a week. There are also five weekly community newspapers. The territory receives the national daily, The Australian, while The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Guardian Weekly are also available in Darwin. Katherine's paper is the Katherine Times. There is an LGBT community publication, QNews Magazine, which is published in Darwin and Alice Springs. Television Metropolitan Darwin has had five broadcast television stations: ABC Northern Territory – (ABD) SBS Northern Territory – (SBS) Southern Cross Seven – (TND) – Seven Network Affiliate Nine Network Darwin – (NTD) Ten Darwin (or Darwin Digital Television) – (DTD) – Network Ten Affiliate Darwin also has four open-narrowcast stations: First Nations TV Darwin TV First Nations Tourism TV Business TV Regional Northern Territory has a similar availability of stations: ABC Northern Territory – (ABD) SBS Northern Territory – (SBS) Seven Central – (QQQ) – Seven Network Affiliate Imparja – (IMP) – Nine Network Affiliate Ten Central (or Central Digital Television) – (CDT) – Network Ten Affiliate Remote areas are generally required to receive television via the Viewer Access Satellite Television service, which carries the same channels as the regional areas, as well as some extra open-narrowcast services, including Indigenous Community Television and Westlink. Radio Darwin has radio stations on both AM and FM frequencies. ABC stations include ABC Radio Darwin (105.7FM), ABC Radio National (657AM), ABC News Radio (102.5FM), ABC Classic FM (107.3FM) and Triple J (103.3FM). The two commercial stations are Hot 100 FM (8HOT) and Mix 104.9 (8MIX). The leading community stations are 104.1 Territory FM (8TOP) and 94.5 Radio Larrakia (8KNB). The radio stations in Alice Springs are also broadcast on the AM and FM frequencies. ABC stations include Triple J (94.9FM), ABC Classic FM (97.9FM), 783 ABC Alice Springs (783AM), ABC News Radio (104.1FM) and ABC Radio National (99.7FM). There are two community stations in the town—CAAMA (100.5FM) and 8CCC (102.1FM). The commercial stations, which are both owned by the same company are Sun 96.9 (96.9FM) and 8HA (900AM). Christian radio station Vision Christian Radio (88.0FM). Two additional stations, Territory FM (98.7FM) and Radio TAB (95.9FM) are syndicated from Darwin and Brisbane, respectively. Sport Australian rules football in the Northern Territory is widely popular, particularly with Indigenous Australian communities in Darwin, Alice Springs and the Tiwi Islands. The governing body for football in the territory is the AFL Northern Territory. Culture The Northern Territory is home to a number of cultural institutions of importance to the nation. These include: Araluen Art Centre and the Museum of Central Australia; within the Araluen Cultural Precinct The Darwin Symphony Orchestra. The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Library & Archives NT. The Strehlow Research Centre. See also Australian Aboriginal prehistoric sites Crime in the Northern Territory Index of Australia-related articles Juvenile detention in the Northern Territory Northern Territory Police List of highways in the Northern Territory Category:Cities in the Northern Territory Category:Towns in the Northern Territory Notes Notes References Citations Sources Hill, Ernestine. 1951. The Territory: The classic saga of Australia's far north. Angus & Robertson. Reprint: 1995. ISBN 0-207-18821-1 Govan, A. (2007) Broadband debate key to NT's future. N.T. Business Review, vol. N/A, no. N/A, p. 7 Morrison, P. (2000) a pilot implementation of internet access for remote aboriginal communities in the "Top end" Of Australia. Urban Studies, Vol. 37, No.10, pp. 1781–1792. Toyne, P. (2002) Northern Territory Government's Response to the House of Representatives Communications, Information Technology & the Arts Committee inquiry into Wireless Broadband Communications. In N.T. GOVERNMENT (Ed.) (pp. 3). Darwin: Northern Territory Government. Toyne, P. (2003) Remote Areas Telecommunications Strategy 2003–2008. In N. T. GOVERNMENT (Ed.) (pp. 1– 32). Darwin N.T. viewed 6 February 2008, <Wayback Machine> External links Northern Territory Government of Australia Archived 14 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine Northern Territory Visitor's Guide Archived 7 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine Australian Bureau of Statistics (27 April 2007). "Northern Territory at a Glance, 2007" (PDF 855 kB). Archived from the original on 21 September 2007. Retrieved 30 April 2007. Geographic data related to Northern Territory at OpenStreetMap Northern Territory Weather and Warnings Summary Archived 2 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine from the Bureau of Meteorology Northern-Territory Northern Territory Climate Archived 20 March 2006 at the Wayback Machine Northern Territory economy/mining Northern Territory Universities Northern Territory Population estimates June 2007 June 2007 NT population estimates Archived 27 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine NT Street and Place Names search Archived 12 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine

Honshu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honshu

Honshu (本州, Honshū, pronounced [hoꜜɰ̃ɕɯː] ; lit. 'main island'), historically called Akitsushima (秋津島, lit. 'Dragonfly island'), is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separates the Sea of Japan, which lies to its north and west, from the North Pacific Ocean to the south and east. It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian island of Java. Honshu had a population of 104 million as of 2017, constituting 81.3% of the entire population of Japan, and mostly concentrated in the coastal areas and plains. Approximately 30% of the total population resides in the Greater Tokyo Area on the Kantō Plain. As the historical center of Japanese cultural and political power, the island includes several past Japanese capitals, including Kyōto, Nara, and Kamakura. Much of the island's southern shore forms part of the Taiheiyō Belt, a megalopolis that spans several of the Japanese islands. Honshu contains Japan's highest mountain, Mount Fuji, and its largest lake, Lake Biwa. Most of Japan's industry is located in a belt running along Honshu's southern coast, from Tokyo to Nagoya, Kyōto, Osaka, Kobe, and Hiroshima; by contrast, the economy along the northwestern Sea of Japan coast is largely based on fishing and agriculture. The island is linked to the other three major Japanese islands by a number of bridges and tunnels. The island primarily shares two climates, with Northern Honshu having a mainly humid continental climate while the south has a humid subtropical climate. Etymology The name of the island, Honshū (本州), directly translates to "main province" or "original land" in English. History Early history Humans first arrived in Honshu approximately 37,000 years ago, and likely earlier. The first humans to arrive in Honshu were Stone Age hunter-gatherers from Northeast Asia, likely following the migration of ice age megafauna. Surviving artifacts from this period include finely-crafted stone blades, similar to those found in Siberia. Meiji Restoration World War II Honshu was the target of devastating air raids during the Pacific War of World War II. The first air raid to strike Honshu and the other home islands was the Doolittle Raid. With the introduction of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the firebombing of Tokyo culminated in Operation Meetinghouse, the most destructive air raid in human history, which destroyed 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead, and over one million homeless. The war ended with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly before Japan's surrender and signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, on board the USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay. Geography The island is roughly 1,300 km (810 mi) long and ranges from 50 to 230 km (31 to 143 mi) wide, and its total area is 227,960 km2 (88,020 sq mi), making it slightly larger than the island of Great Britain. Its land area has been increasing with land reclamation and coastal uplift in the north due to plate tectonics with a convergent boundary. Honshu has 10,084 kilometres (6,266 mi) of coastline. Mountainous and volcanic, Honshu experiences frequent earthquakes (such as the Great Kantō earthquake, which heavily damaged Tokyo in September 1923; and the earthquake of March 2011, which moved the northeastern part of the island by varying amounts of as much as 5.3 m (17 ft) while causing devastating tsunamis). The highest peak is the active volcano Mount Fuji at 3,776 m (12,388 ft), which makes Honshu the world's 7th highest island. There are many rivers, including the Shinano River, Japan's longest. The Japanese Alps span the width of Honshu, from the 'Sea of Japan' coast to the Pacific shore. The climate is generally humid subtropical in western Japan and humid continental in the north. Population Honshu has a total population of 104 million people, according to a 2017 estimate, 81.3% of the entire population of Japan. The largest city is Tokyo (population: 13,988,129), the capital of Japan and part of the Greater Tokyo Area, the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Extreme points Bridges and tunnels Honshu is connected to the islands of Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku by tunnels and bridges. Three bridge systems have been built across the islands of the Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku (Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and the Ōnaruto Bridge; Shin-Onomichi Bridge, Innoshima Bridge, Ikuchi Bridge, Tatara Bridge, Ōmishima Bridge, Hakata–Ōshima Bridge, and the Kurushima Kaikyō Bridge; Shimotsui-Seto Bridge, Hitsuishijima Bridge, Iwakurojima Bridge, Yoshima Bridge, Kita Bisan-Seto Bridge, and the Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge), the Seikan Tunnel connects Honshu with Hokkaidō, and the Kanmonkyo Bridge and Kanmon Tunnel connect Honshu with Kyūshū. Flora and fauna These are notable flora and fauna of Honshu. Geologic activity Being on the Ring of Fire, the island of Honshu is seismically active, and is home to 40 active volcanoes. In 2011, an earthquake of magnitude 9.0–9.1 occurred off the coast of Honshu, generating tsunami waves up to 40.5 meters (133 ft) high and killing 19,747. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The tsunami subsequently led to the meltdown of 3 nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, leading to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Parks Economy Honshu island generates around US$3.5 trillion or more than 80% of Japan's GDP. Agriculture Fruit, vegetables, grains, rice and cotton make up the main produce grown in Honshu. The Tohoku region, spanning the north-eastern part of the island, is notable for its rice production, with 65% of cultivated land being rice paddy fields – almost a quarter of all paddy fields in Japan. Chiba Prefecture is famous for its peanuts, also being the largest producer in Japan. Rare species of the lichen genus Menegazzia are found only in Honshu. Industry Most of Japan's tea and silk is from Honshu. Japan's three largest industrial regions are all located on Honshu: the Keihin region, the Hanshin Industrial Region, and the Chūkyō Industrial Area. Minerals and fuels Honshu is home to a large portion of Japan's minimal mineral reserves, including small oil and coal deposits. Several coal deposits are located in the northern part of the island, concentrated in Fukushima Prefecture and Niigata Prefecture, though Honshu's coal production is negligible in comparison to Hokkaido and Kyushu. Most of Japan's oil reserves are also located in northern Honshu, along the west coast, spanning Niigata, Yamagata, and Akita Prefectures. Most of Japan's copper, lead, zinc and chromite is located on Honshu, along with smaller, scattered deposits of gold, silver, arsenic, sulfur and pyrite. Transportation The Tokaido Shinkansen, opened in 1964 between Tokyo and Shin-Ōsaka, is Japan's first high-speed rail line. It is the world's oldest high-speed rail line and one of the most heavily used. The San'yō Shinkansen, connects the two largest cities in western Japan, Shin-Osaka in Osaka with Hakata Station in Fukuoka. Both the Tokaido Shinkansen and the Sanyo Shinkansen help form a continuous high-speed railway through the Taiheiyō Belt megalopolis. Administrative regions and prefectures The island is divided into five nominal regions and contains 34 prefectures, including metropolitan Tokyo. Administratively, some smaller islands are included within these prefectures, notably including the Ogasawara Islands, Sado Island, Izu Ōshima, and Awaji Island. The regions and their prefectures are: See also Geography of Japan Hokkaido Japanese archipelago Kyushu Okinawa Shikoku References External links Honshu travel guide from Wikivoyage Media related to Honshu at Wikimedia Commons

Sumatra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatra

Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi.2), including adjacent islands such as the Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Enggano, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung and Krakatoa archipelago. Sumatra is an elongated landmass spanning a diagonal northwest–southeast axis. The Indian Ocean borders the northwest, west, and southwest coasts of Sumatra, with the island chain of Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, and Enggano off the western coast. In the northeast, the narrow Strait of Malacca separates the island from the Malay Peninsula, which is an extension of the Eurasian continent. In the southeast, the narrow Sunda Strait, containing the Krakatoa Archipelago, separates Sumatra from Java. The northern tip of Sumatra is near the Andaman Islands, while off the southeastern coast lie the islands of Bangka and Belitung, Karimata Strait and the Java Sea. The Bukit Barisan mountains, which contain several active volcanoes, form the backbone of the island, while the northeastern area contains large plains and lowlands with swamps, mangrove forest and complex river systems. The equator crosses the island at its centre in West Sumatra and Riau provinces. The climate of the island is tropical, hot, and humid. Lush tropical rain forest once dominated the landscape. Sumatra has a wide range of plant and animal species but has lost almost 50% of its tropical rainforest in the last 35 years. Many species are now critically endangered, such as the Sumatran ground cuckoo, the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan. Deforestation on the island has also resulted in serious seasonal smoke haze over neighbouring countries, such as the 2013 Southeast Asian haze which caused considerable tensions between Indonesia and affected countries Malaysia and Singapore. The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide. Etymology Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit names of Svarṇadvīpa ('Island of Gold') and Svarṇabhūmi ('Land of Gold'), because of the gold deposits in the island's highlands. The earliest known mention of the current form "Sumatra" was in 1017, when the local king Haji Sumatrabhumi ("king of the land of Sumatra") sent an envoy to China. Arab geographers referred to the island as Lamri (Lamuri, Lambri or Ramni) in the tenth through thirteenth centuries, in reference to a kingdom near modern-day Banda Aceh which was the first landfall for traders. The island has also been known by other names, including Andalas or Percha Island. Scholars suggest that mention of Suwarnadwipa in the Hindu Epic the Ramayana may be a reference to Sumatra. According to experts on The Ramayana, the epic is one of the first sources to document the relationship between India and the Indonesian archipelago. In the late 13th century, Marco Polo referred to the kingdom as Samara, while his contemporary fellow Italian traveller Odoric of Pordenone used the form Sumoltra. Later in the 14th century the local form "Sumatra" became popular abroad due to the rising power of the kingdom of Samudera Pasai and the subsequent Sultanate of Aceh. From then on, subsequent European writers mostly used Sumatra or similar forms of the name for the entire island. History By the year 692, the Melayu Kingdom was absorbed by Srivijaya.: 79–80  Srivijaya's influence waned in the 11th century, specifically in the year 1025, after suffering defeat at the hands of the Chola Empire in southern India By the end of the 12th century, Srivijaya had been reduced to a kingdom, and its dominant role in South Sumatra ended with the last king, Ratu Sekekhummong, who founded the milestone of Kepaksian Sekala Brak in the 13th century AD with the Dalom building. At the same time, the spread of Islam in Indonesia occurred gradually and indirectly, starting from the western regions of Indonesia such as the Sumatra area which became the first place for the spread of Islam in the archipelago, then Java, then to the eastern regions of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Maluku. The island of Sumatra is also an area in the archipelago that received the spread of Islam first compared to other islands or other areas. The island of Sumatra became the first area to receive the spread of Islam because of the position of the island of Sumatra which is close to the Malacca strait. The initial process of Islamization related to trade and also the formation of the kingdom. Islam entered Sumatra through pious Arabs and Tamil traders in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. At the beginning and end of the 13th century the formation of the kingdom, the king of the Samudra kingdom had converted to Islam. Marco Polo visited the island in 1292, and his fellow Italian Odoric of Pordenone in 1321. Aceh in the north of Sumatra became known in the 16th century as trading centre for the pepper trade by shipping quality piperaceae (pepper). Aceh became the main commercial centre of the Aceh Sultanate and trading routes were established to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea to rival the Portuguese shipping lanes. The reign of Iskandar Muda is known as the golden age of Sumatra because he extended the cultural influence of the Aceh Sultanate to Padang and Johor. The Aceh Sultanate sustained the rivalry with the Johor sultanate, the Dutch, and the Portuguese throughout the 16th and 17th century. When the Dutch were weakened in the 18th century the British empire began to actively intervene in Aceh, establishing close relations between Banda Aceh and Penang. In the 17th and 18th century the Aceh Sultanate battled the Siak sultanate in the south of Sumatra. The port city of Banda Aceh was recorded in European historical writings since the 13th century. In terms of economic development the port of Banda Aceh only started to face competition in the 18th century when more ports were constructed in Sumatra for maritime transport. Nevertheless, major pepper suppliers used the port of Banda Aceh at the beginning of the 19th century. The port in Medan grew swiftly in the late 19th and early 20th century. Meanwhile the medium sized port of Palembang faced a stiff economic decline as the heritage of the Srivijaya empire was superseded by the economic policy of the Singhasari and Majapahit. The Palembang sultanate experienced a terminal decline in the early 19th century. With the coming of the Dutch Empire, the many Sumatran princely states gradually fell under their control. Aceh posed major obstacles, as the Dutch were involved in the long and costly Aceh War (1873–1903). During the Second World War, Japan invaded Sumatra in 1942. The Free Aceh Movement fought against Indonesian government forces in the Aceh Insurgency from 1976 to 2005. Security crackdowns in 2001 and 2002 resulted in several thousand civilian deaths. The island was heavily impacted by both the 1883 Krakatoa eruption and the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Demographics Sumatra’s population as of 2023 was estimated to be about 60,795,669 ; it has about the same number of inhabitants as South Africa, making it the fifth-most populous island in the world. Yet because it is such a large island, it is not densely populated: it has an average of about 126 people per km2. Ethnic groups The largest indigenous ethnic groups in Sumatra are Malays, Minangkabaus, Bataks, Acehnese, and Lampungs. Other major non-indigenous ethnic groups are Javanese, Sundanese, and Chinese. Below are 11 largest ethnic groups in Sumatra based on the 2010 census (including Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung, Nias, Mentawai, Simeulue and islands around it) Languages There are over 52 languages spoken, all of which (except Chinese and Tamil) belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. Within Malayo-Polynesian, they are divided into several sub-branches: Chamic (which are represented by Acehnese in which its closest relatives are languages spoken by Ethnic Chams in Cambodia and Vietnam), Malayic (Malay, Minangkabau and other closely related languages), Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands (Batak languages, Gayo and others), Lampungic (includes Proper Lampung and Komering) and Bornean (represented by Rejang in which its closest linguistic relatives are Bukar Sadong and Land Dayak spoken in West Kalimantan and Sarawak (Malaysia)). Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands and Lampungic branches are endemic to the island. Like all parts of Indonesia, Indonesian (which was based on Riau Malay) is the official language and the main lingua franca. Although Sumatra has its own local lingua franca, variants of Malay like Medan Malay and Palembang Malay are popular in North and South Sumatra, especially in urban areas. Minangkabau (Padang dialect) is popular in West Sumatra, some parts of North Sumatra, Bengkulu, Jambi and Riau (especially in Pekanbaru and areas bordered with West Sumatra) while Acehnese is also used as an inter-ethnic means of communication in some parts of Aceh province. Religion The majority of people in Sumatra are Muslims (87.12%), while 10.69% are Christians, and less than 2.19% are Buddhists and Hindus. Administration Sumatra is one of seven geographical regions of Indonesia, which includes its adjacent smaller islands. Sumatra was one of the eight original provinces of Indonesia between 1945 and 1948. Including adjacent archipelagoes normally included with Sumatra (such as the Riau Islands, Nias and the Bangka-Belitung group), it now covers ten of Indonesia's 38 provinces, which are set out below with their areas and populations. Geography The longest axis of the island runs approximately 1,790 km (1,110 mi) northwest–southeast, crossing the equator near the centre. At its widest point, the island spans 435 km (270 mi). The interior of the island is dominated by two geographical regions: the Barisan Mountains in the west and swampy plains in the east. Sumatra is the closest Indonesian island to mainland Asia. To the southeast is Java, separated by the Sunda Strait. To the north is the Malay Peninsula (located on the Asian mainland), separated by the Strait of Malacca. To the east is Borneo, across the Karimata Strait. West of the island is the Indian Ocean. The Great Sumatran fault (a strike-slip fault), and the Sunda megathrust (a subduction zone), run the entire length of the island along its west coast. On 26 December 2004, the western coast and islands of Sumatra, particularly Aceh province, were struck by a tsunami following the Indian Ocean earthquake. This was the longest earthquake recorded, lasting between 500 and 600 seconds (8.33–10 minutes). More than 170,000 Indonesians were killed, primarily in Aceh. Other recent earthquakes to strike Sumatra include the 2005 Nias–Simeulue earthquake and the 2010 Mentawai earthquake and tsunami. Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago, representing a climate-changing event. The most important rivers in Sumatra belong to the catchment area of the South China Sea. Heading north to south, the Asahan, Rokan, Siak, Kampar, Indragiri, Batanghari flow into the Malacca Strait, while the island's largest river, the Musi, flows into the sea at Bangka Strait in the south. To the east, big rivers carry silt from the mountains, forming the vast lowland interspersed by swamps. Even if mostly unsuitable for farming, the area is currently of great economic importance for Indonesia. It produces oil from both above and below the soil – palm oil and petroleum. Sumatra is the largest producer of Indonesian coffee. Small-holders grow Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) in the highlands, while Robusta (Coffea canephora) is found in the lowlands. Arabica coffee from the regions of Gayo, Lintong and Sidikilang is typically processed using the Giling Basah (wet hulling) technique, which gives it a heavy body and low acidity. Sumatra is a highly seismic island. Huge earthquakes have been recorded throughout history. In 1797, an 8.9 earthquake shook Western Sumatra, and in 1833, a 9.2 earthquake shook Bengkulu and Western Sumatra. Both events caused large tsunamis. Earthquakes are very common throughout the coastal area of the west and center of the island, and tsunamis are common due to the high seismicity in the area. Largest cities By population, Medan is the largest city in Sumatra. Medan is also the most visited and developed city in Sumatra. Flora and fauna Sumatra supports a wide range of vegetation types that are home to a rich variety of species, including 17 endemic genera of plants. Unique species include the Sumatran pine which dominates the Sumatran tropical pine forests of the higher mountainsides in the north of the island and rainforest plants such as Rafflesia arnoldii (the world's largest individual flower), and the titan arum (the world's largest unbranched inflorescence). The island is home to 201 mammal species and 580 bird species. There are nine endemic mammal species on mainland Sumatra and 14 more endemic to the nearby Mentawai Islands. There are about 300 freshwater fish species in Sumatra. There are 93 amphibian species in Sumatra, 21 of which are endemic to Sumatra. The Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran elephant, Sumatran ground cuckoo, Sumatran orangutan and Tapanuli orangutan are all critically endangered, indicating the highest level of threat to their survival. In October 2008, the Indonesian government announced a plan to protect Sumatra's remaining forests. The island includes more than 10 national parks, including three which are listed as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra World Heritage Site – Gunung Leuser National Park, Kerinci Seblat National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. The Berbak National Park is one of three national parks in Indonesia listed as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. Sumatra has lost almost 50% of its tropical rainforest in the last 35 years. Many species are now critically endangered, such as the Sumatran ground cuckoo, the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan. Deforestation on the island has also resulted in serious seasonal smoke haze over neighbouring countries, such as the 2013 Southeast Asian haze which caused considerable tensions between Indonesia and affected countries Malaysia and Singapore. The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide. Rail transport Several unconnected railway networks built during Netherlands East Indies exist in Sumatra, such as the ones connecting Banda Aceh-Lhokseumawe-Besitang-Medan-Tebingtinggi-Pematang Siantar-Rantau Prapat in Northern Sumatra (the Banda Aceh-Besitang section was closed in 1971, but is currently being rebuilt). Padang-Solok-Bukittinggi in West Sumatra, and Bandar Lampung-Palembang-Lahat-Lubuklinggau in Southern Sumatra. See also Architecture of Sumatra Bukit Seguntang Communism in Sumatra Music of Sumatra Notes References Further reading Grover, Samantha; Sukamta, Linda; Edis, Robert (August 2017). "People, Palm Oil, Pulp and Planet: Four Perspectives on Indonesia's Fire-stricken Peatlands". The Conversation. William Marsden, The History of Sumatra, (1783); 3rd ed. (1811) freely available online. External links "Sumatra" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.

Philadelphia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia

Philadelphia, colloquially referred to as Philly, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 1,603,797 in the 2020 census. The city is the urban core of the larger Delaware Valley, also known as the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the eighth-largest metropolitan region in the nation with 6.245 million residents in its metropolitan statistical area, and 7.366 million residents in its combined statistical area. Philadelphia has played an extensive role in United States history. The city was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker and advocate of religious freedom. The city served as the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers during the American Revolution and subsequent Revolutionary War. Philadelphia hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774, preserved the Liberty Bell, and hosted the Second Continental Congress during which the nation's 56 founders formed the Continental Army and elected George Washington as its commander in 1775, and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. For nine months, from September 1777 to June 1778, the city fell under British occupation during the war's Philadelphia campaign. In 1787, the U.S. Constitution was ratified in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Convention. Philadelphia remained the nation's largest city until 1790, and it served as the nation's first capital from May 10, 1775, until December 12, 1776, and on four subsequent occasions until 1800, when construction of the new national capital in Washington, D.C. was completed. Philadelphia maintains extensive contemporary influence in business and industry, culture, sports, and music. With 17 four-year universities and colleges in the city, Philadelphia is one of the nation's leading centers for higher education and academic research. The city is a national cultural center, hosting more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other city in the nation. Fairmount Park, when combined with adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the same watershed, is 2,052 acres (830 ha), representing one of the nation's largest and the world's 54th-largest urban park. Philadelphia is known for its arts, culture, cuisine, and colonial and Revolutionary-era history; in 2016, it attracted 42 million domestic tourists who spent $6.8 billion, representing $11 billion in economic impact to the city and its surrounding Pennsylvania counties. With five professional sports teams and one of the nation's most loyal and passionate fan bases, Philadelphia is often ranked as the nation's best city for professional sports fans. The city has a culturally and philanthropically active LGBTQ+ community. Philadelphia also has played an immensely influential historic and ongoing role in the development and evolution of American music, especially R&B, soul, and rock. As of 2022, the Philadelphia metropolitan area had a gross metropolitan product of US$518.5 billion and is home to five Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. Metropolitan Philadelphia ranks as one of the Big Five U.S. venture capital hubs, facilitated by its geographic proximity to both the entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems of New York City and to the federal regulatory environment of Washington, D.C. Greater Philadelphia is also a biotechnology hub. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange, owned by Nasdaq since 2008, is the nation's oldest stock exchange and a global leader in options trading. 30th Street Station, the city's primary rail station, is the third-busiest Amtrak hub in the nation, and the city's multimodal transportation and logistics infrastructure also includes Philadelphia International Airport, a major transatlantic gateway and transcontinental hub; the rapidly-growing PhilaPort seaport; and Interstate 95, the spine of the north-south highway system along the East Coast of the United States. Philadelphia is a city of many firsts, including the nation's first library (1731), hospital (1751), medical school (1765), national capital (1774), university (by some accounts) (1779), central bank (1781), stock exchange (1790), zoo (1874), and business school (1881). Philadelphia contains 67 National Historic Landmarks, including Independence Hall. From the city's 17th century founding through the present, Philadelphia has been the birthplace or home to an extensive number of prominent and influential Americans. History Native peoples Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon. They were also called the Delaware Indians, and their historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. Most Lenape were pushed out of the region during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and conflict with Europeans. The Iroquois occasionally fought the Lenape. Surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. Following the American Revolutionary War and subsequent formation of an independent United States, the Lenape began moving further west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most remaining Lenape in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territories as part of the Indian removal policy. Colonial Europeans first entered Philadelphia and the surrounding Delaware Valley in the early 17th century. The first settlements were founded by Dutch colonists, who built Fort Nassau on the Delaware River in 1623 in what is now Brooklawn, New Jersey. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony. In 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina, located in present-day Wilmington, Delaware, and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their war against Maryland colonists. In 1648, the Dutch built Fort Beversreede on the west bank of the Delaware, south of the Schuylkill River near the present-day Eastwick section of Philadelphia, to reassert their dominion over the area. The Swedes responded by building Fort Nya Korsholm, or New Korsholm, named after a town in Finland with a Swedish majority. In 1655, a Dutch military campaign led by New Netherland Director-General Peter Stuyvesant took control of the Swedish colony, ending its claim to independence. The Swedish and Finnish people settlers continued to have their own militia, religion, and court, and to enjoy substantial autonomy under the Dutch. An English fleet captured the New Netherland colony in 1664, though the situation did not change substantially until 1682, when the area was included in William Penn's charter for Pennsylvania. In 1681, in partial repayment of a debt, Charles II of England granted Penn a charter for what would become the Pennsylvania colony. Despite the royal charter, Penn bought the land from the local Lenape in an effort to establish good terms with the Native Americans and ensure peace for the colony. Penn made a treaty of friendship with Lenape chief Tammany under an elm tree at Shackamaxon, in what is now the city's Fishtown neighborhood. Penn named the city Philadelphia, which is Greek for "brotherly love", derived from the Ancient Greek terms φίλος phílos (beloved, dear) and ἀδελφός adelphós (brother, brotherly). There were a number of cities named Philadelphia in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Greek and Roman periods, including modern Alaşehir, mentioned as the site of an early Christian congregation in the Book of Revelation. As a Quaker, Penn had experienced religious persecution and wanted his colony to be a place where anyone could worship freely. This tolerance, which exceeded that of other colonies, led to better relations with the local native tribes and fostered Philadelphia's rapid growth into America's most important city. Penn planned a city on the Delaware River to serve as a port and place for government. Hoping that Philadelphia would become more like an English rural town instead of a city, Penn laid out roads on a grid plan to keep houses and businesses spread far apart with areas for gardens and orchards. The city's inhabitants did not follow Penn's plans, however, and instead crowded the present-day Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River and subdivided and resold their lots. Before Penn left Philadelphia for the final time, he issued the Charter of 1701 establishing it as a city. Though poor at first, Philadelphia became an important trading center with tolerable living conditions by the 1750s. Benjamin Franklin, a leading citizen, helped improve city services and founded new ones that were among the first in the nation, including a fire company, library, and hospital. A number of philosophical societies were formed, which were centers of the city's intellectual life, including the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture (1785), the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts (1787), the Academy of Natural Sciences (1812), and the Franklin Institute (1824). These societies developed and financed new industries that attracted skilled and knowledgeable immigrants from Europe. American Revolution Philadelphia's importance and central location in the colonies made it a natural center for America's revolutionaries. By the 1750s, Philadelphia surpassed Boston as the largest city and busiest port in British America, and the second-largest city in the entire British Empire after London. In 1774, as resentment of British colonial practices and support for independence was burgeoning in the colonies, Philadelphia hosted the First Continental Congress. From 1775 to 1781, Philadelphia hosted the Second Continental Congress, which adopted the Declaration of Independence in what was then called the Pennsylvania State House and was later renamed Independence Hall. Historian Joseph Ellis, in 2007, described the Declaration of Independence, written predominantly by Thomas Jefferson, as "the most potent and consequential words in American history," and its adoption represented a declaration of war against the British Army, which was then the world's most powerful military force. Since the Declaration's July 4, 1776, adoption, its signing has been cited globally and repeatedly by various peoples of the world seeking independence and liberty. It also has been, since its adoption, the basis for annual celebration by Americans; in 1938, this celebration of the Declaration was formalized as Independence Day, one of only eleven designated U.S. federal holidays. After George Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine in Chadds Ford Township, on September 11, 1777, during the Philadelphia campaign, the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia was defenseless and the city prepared for what was perceived to be an inevitable British attack. Because bells could easily be recast into munitions, the Liberty Bell, then known as the Pennsylvania State Bell, and bells from two Philadelphia churches, Christ Church and St. Peter's Church, were hastily taken down and transported by heavily guarded wagon train out of the city. The Liberty Bell was taken to Zion German Reformed Church in Northampton Town, which is present-day Allentown, where it was hidden under the church's floor boards for nine months from September 1777 until the British Army's departure from Philadelphia in June 1778. Two Revolutionary War battles, the Siege of Fort Mifflin, fought between September 26 and November 16, 1777, and the Battle of Germantown, fought on October 4, 1777, took place within Philadelphia's city limits. In Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777, and the city later served as the meeting place for the Constitutional Convention, which ratified the Constitution in Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. Philadelphia served as capital of the United States for much of the colonial and early post-colonial periods, including for a decade, from 1790 to 1800, while Washington, D.C., was being constructed and prepared to serve as the new national capital. In 1793, the largest yellow fever epidemic in U.S. history killed approximately 4,000 to 5,000 people in Philadelphia, or about ten percent of the city's population at the time. The capital of the United States was moved to Washington, D.C. in 1800 upon completion of the White House and U.S. Capitol buildings. The state capital was moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster in 1799, then ultimately to Harrisburg in 1812. Philadelphia remained the nation's largest city until the late 18th century. It also was the nation's financial and cultural center until ultimately being eclipsed in total population by New York City in 1790. In 1816, the city's free Black community founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent Black denomination in the country, and the first Black Episcopal Church. The free Black community also established many schools for its children with the help of Quakers. Large-scale construction projects for new roads, canals, and railroads made Philadelphia the first major industrial city in the United States. 19th century Throughout the 19th century, Philadelphia hosted a variety of industries and businesses; the largest was the textile industry. Major corporations in the 19th and early 20th centuries included the Baldwin Locomotive Works, William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Established in 1870, the Philadelphia Conveyancers' Association was chartered by the state in 1871. Along with the U.S. Centennial in 1876, the city's industry was celebrated in the Centennial Exposition, the first official World's fair in the U.S. Immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany, settled in Philadelphia and the surrounding districts. These immigrants were largely responsible for the first general strike in North America in 1835, in which workers in the city won the ten-hour workday. The city was a destination for thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine in the 1840s; housing for them was developed south of South Street and later occupied by succeeding immigrants. They established a network of Catholic churches and schools and dominated the Catholic clergy for decades. Anti-Irish, anti-Catholic nativist riots erupted in Philadelphia in 1844. The rise in population of the surrounding districts helped lead to the Act of Consolidation of 1854, which extended the city limits from the 2 square miles (5.2 km2) of Center City to the roughly 134 square miles (350 km2) of Philadelphia County. In the latter half of the 19th century and leading into the 20th century, immigrants from Russia, Eastern Europe, and Italy, and African Americans from the southern U.S. settled in the city. Philadelphia was represented by the Washington Grays in the American Civil War. The African-American population of Philadelphia increased from 31,699 to 219,559 between 1880 and 1930, largely stemming from the Great Migration from the South. 20th century By the 20th century, Philadelphia had an entrenched Republican political machine and a complacent population. In 1910, a general strike shut down the entire city. In 1917, following outrage over the election-year murder of a Philadelphia police officer, led to the shrinking of the City Council from two houses to just one. In July 1919, Philadelphia was one of more than 36 industrial cities nationally to suffer a race riot during Red Summer in post-World War I unrest as recent immigrants competed with Blacks for jobs. In the 1920s, the public flouting of Prohibition laws, organized crime, mob violence, and corrupt police involvement in illegal activities led to the appointment of Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps as the city's director of public safety, but political pressure still prevented long-term success in fighting crime and corruption. In 1940, non-Hispanic whites constituted 86.8% of the city's population. In 1950, the population peaked at more than two million residents, then began to decline with the restructuring of industry that led to the loss of many middle-class union jobs. In addition, suburbanization enticed many affluent residents to depart the city for its outlying railroad commuting towns and newer housing. The resulting reduction in Philadelphia's tax base and the resources of local government caused the city to struggle through a long period of adjustment, and it approached bankruptcy by the late 1980s. In 1985, the MOVE Bombing of the Cobbs Creek neighborhood by city helicopters occurred, killing 11 and destroying 61 homes. Revitalization and gentrification of neighborhoods began in the late 1970s and continues into the 21st century with much of the development occurring in the Center City and University City neighborhoods. But this expanded a shortage of affordable housing in the city. After many manufacturers and businesses left Philadelphia or shut down, the city started attracting service businesses and began to market itself more aggressively as a tourist destination. Contemporary glass-and-granite skyscrapers were built in Center City beginning in the 1980s. Historic areas such as Old City and Society Hill were renovated during the reformist mayoral era of the 1950s through the 1980s, making both areas among the most desirable Center City neighborhoods. Immigrants from around the world began to enter the U.S. through Philadelphia as their gateway, leading to a reversal of the city's population decline between 1950 and 2000, during which it lost about 25 percent of its residents. 21st century Philadelphia eventually began experiencing a growth in its population in 2007, which continued with incremental annual increases through the present. A migration pattern has been established from New York City to Philadelphia by residents opting for a large city with relative proximity and a lower cost of living. Geography Topography Philadelphia's geographic center is about 40° 0′ 34″ north latitude and 75° 8′ 0″ west longitude. The 40th parallel north passes through neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and West Philadelphia including Fairmount Park. The city encompasses 142.71 square miles (369.62 km2), of which 134.18 square miles (347.52 km2) is land and 8.53 square miles (22.09 km2), or 6%, is water. Natural bodies of water include the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, lakes in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, and Cobbs, Wissahickon, and Pennypack creeks. The largest artificial body of water is East Park Reservoir in Fairmount Park. The lowest point is sea level and the highest point is in Chestnut Hill, about 446 feet (136 m) above sea level on Summit Street near the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike at: 40.07815 N, 75.20747 W. Philadelphia is located on the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line that separates the Atlantic Plain from the Piedmont. The Schuylkill River's rapids at East Falls were inundated by completion of the dam at Fairmount Water Works. The city is the seat of its own county. The city is bordered by six adjacent counties: Montgomery to the northwest; Bucks to the north and northeast; Burlington County, New Jersey to the east; Camden County, New Jersey to the southeast; Gloucester County, New Jersey to the south; and Delaware County to the southwest. Cityscape City planning Philadelphia was created in the 17th century, following the plan by William Penn's surveyor Thomas Holme. Center City is structured with long, straight streets running nearly due east–west and north–south, forming a grid pattern between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers that is aligned with their courses. The original city plan was designed to allow for easy travel and to keep residences separated by open space that would help prevent the spread of fire. In keeping with the idea of a "Greene Countrie Towne", and inspired by the many types of trees that grew in the region, Penn named many of the east–west streets for local trees. Penn planned the creation of five public parks in the city which were renamed in 1824. Centre Square was renamed Penn Square; Northeast Square was renamed Franklin Square; Southeast Square was renamed Washington Square; Southwest Square was renamed Rittenhouse Square; and Northwest Square was renamed Logan Circle/Square. Center City had an estimated 183,240 residents as of 2015, making it the second-most populated downtown area in the United States after Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Philadelphia's neighborhoods are divided into six large sections that surround Center City: North Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Southwest Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, and Northwest Philadelphia. The city's geographic boundaries have been largely unchanged since these neighborhoods were consolidated in 1854. However, each of these large areas contains numerous neighborhoods, some of whose boundaries derive from the boroughs, townships, and other communities that constituted Pennsylvania County before their inclusion within the city. The City Planning Commission, tasked with guiding growth and development of the city, has divided the city into 18 planning districts as part of the Philadelphia2035 physical development plan. Much of the city's 1980 zoning code was overhauled from 2007 to 2012 as part of a joint effort between former mayors John F. Street and Michael Nutter. The zoning changes were intended to rectify incorrect zoning maps to facilitate future community development, as the city forecasts an additional 100,000 residents and 40,000 jobs will be added by 2035. The Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) is the largest landlord in Pennsylvania. Established in 1937, the PHA is the nation's fourth-largest housing authority, serving about 81,000 people with affordable housing, while employing 1,400 on a budget of $371 million. The Philadelphia Parking Authority is responsible for ensuring adequate parking for city residents, businesses, and visitors. Architecture Philadelphia's architectural history dates back to colonial times and includes a wide range of styles. The earliest structures were constructed with logs, but brick structures were common by 1700. During the 18th century, the cityscape was dominated by Georgian architecture, including Independence Hall and Christ Church. In the first decades of the 19th century, Federal and Greek Revival architecture were the dominant styles produced by Philadelphia architects such as Benjamin Latrobe, William Strickland, John Haviland, John Notman, Thomas Walter, and Samuel Sloan. Frank Furness is considered Philadelphia's greatest architect of the second half of the 19th century. His contemporaries included John McArthur Jr., Addison Hutton, Wilson Eyre, the Wilson Brothers, and Horace Trumbauer. In 1871, construction began on the Second Empire-style Philadelphia City Hall. The Philadelphia Historical Commission was created in 1955 to preserve the cultural and architectural history of the city. The commission maintains the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, adding historic buildings, structures, sites, objects and districts as it sees fit. In 1932, Philadelphia became home to the first modern International Style skyscraper in the United States, the PSFS Building, designed by George Howe and William Lescaze. The 548 ft (167 m) City Hall remained the tallest building in the city until 1987 when One Liberty Place was completed. Numerous glass and granite skyscrapers were built in Center City beginning in the late 1980s. In 2007, the Comcast Center surpassed One Liberty Place to become the city's tallest building. The Comcast Technology Center was completed in 2018, reaching a height of 1,121 ft (342 m), as the tallest building in the United States outside of Manhattan and Chicago. For much of Philadelphia's history, the typical home has been the row house. The row house was introduced to the United States via Philadelphia in the early 19th century and, for a time, row houses built elsewhere in the United States were known as "Philadelphia rows". A variety of row houses are found throughout the city, from Federal-style continuous blocks in Old City and Society Hill to Victorian-style homes in North Philadelphia to twin row houses in West Philadelphia. While newer homes have been built recently, much of the housing dates to the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, which has created problems such as urban decay and vacant lots. Some neighborhoods, including Northern Liberties and Society Hill, have been rehabilitated through gentrification. Parks As of 2014, the city's total park space, including municipal, state, and federal parks in the city, amounts to 11,211 acres (17.5 sq mi). Philadelphia's largest park is Fairmount Park, which includes the Philadelphia Zoo and encompasses 2,052 acres (3.2 sq mi) of the total parkland. Fairmount Park's adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park contains 2,042 acres (3.2 sq mi). Fairmount Park, when combined with Wissahickon Valley Park, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the U.S. The two parks, along with the Colonial Revival, Georgian and Federal-style mansions in them, have been listed as one entity on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972. Climate Within the Köppen climate classification, Philadelphia falls under the northern periphery of the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen Cfa). Within the Trewartha climate classification, Philadelphia has a temperate maritime climate (Do) limited to the north by the continental climate (Dc). Summers are typically hot and muggy. Fall and spring are generally mild, and winter is moderately cold. The plant life hardiness zones are 7a and 7b, reflecting an average annual extreme minimum temperature between 0 and 10 °F (−18 and −12 °C). Snowfall is highly variable. Some winters have only light snow while others include major snowstorms. The normal seasonal snowfall averages 22.4 in (57 cm), with rare snowfalls in November or April, and rarely any sustained snow cover. Seasonal snowfall accumulation has ranged from trace amounts in 1972–73, to 78.7 inches (200 cm) in the winter of 2009–10. The city's heaviest single-storm snowfall was 30.7 in (78 cm), which occurred in January 1996. Precipitation is generally spread throughout the year, with eight to eleven wet days per month, at an average annual rate of 44.1 inches (1,120 mm), but historically ranging from 29.31 in (744 mm) in 1922 to 64.33 in (1,634 mm) in 2011. The most rain recorded in one day occurred on July 28, 2013, when 8.02 in (204 mm) fell at Philadelphia International Airport. Philadelphia has a moderately sunny climate with an average of 2,498 hours of sunshine annually. The percentage of sunshine ranges from 47% in December to 61% in June, July, and August. The January daily average temperature is 33.7 °F (0.9 °C). The temperature frequently rises to 50 °F (10 °C) during thaws. July averages 78.7 °F (25.9 °C). Heat waves accompanied by high humidity and heat indices are frequent, with highs reaching or exceeding 90 °F (32 °C) on 30 days of the year. The average window for freezing temperatures is November 6 to April 2, allowing a growing season of 217 days. Early fall and late winter are generally dry, with February having the lowest average precipitation at 2.75 inches (70 mm). The dewpoint in the summer averages between 59.1 and 64.5 °F (15 and 18 °C). The highest recorded temperature was 106 °F (41 °C) on August 7, 1918. Temperatures at or above 100 °F (38 °C) are not common, with the last occurrence of such a temperature being July 21, 2019. The lowest officially recorded temperature was −11 °F (−24 °C) on February 9, 1934. Temperatures at or below 0 °F (−18 °C) are rare, with the last such occurrence being January 19, 1994. The record low maximum is 5 °F (−15 °C) on February 10, 1899, and December 30, 1880. The record high minimum is 83 °F (28 °C) on July 23, 2011, and July 24, 2010. Time Series See or edit raw graph data. Air quality Philadelphia County received an ozone grade of F and a 24-hour particle pollution rating of D in the American Lung Association's 2017 State of the Air report, which analyzed data from 2013 to 2015. The city was ranked 22nd for ozone, 20th for short-term particle pollution, and 11th for year-round particle pollution. According to the same report, the city experienced a significant reduction in high ozone days since 2001—from nearly 50 days per year to fewer than 10—along with fewer days of high particle pollution since 2000—from about 19 days per year to about 3—and an approximate 30% reduction in annual levels of particle pollution since 2000. Five of the ten largest combined statistical areas (CSAs) were ranked higher for ozone: Los Angeles (1st), New York City (9th), Houston (12th), Dallas (13th), and San Jose, California (18th). Many smaller CSAs were also ranked higher for ozone, including Sacramento (8th), Las Vegas (10th), Denver (11th), El Paso (16th), and Salt Lake City (20th). Only two of those same ten CSAs, San Jose and Los Angeles, were ranked higher than Philadelphia for both year-round and short-term particle pollution. Demographics As of the 2020 U.S. Census, there were 1,603,797 people residing in Philadelphia, representing a 1.2% increase from the 2019 census estimate. The racial composition of the city was 39.3% Black alone (42.0% Black alone or in combination), 36.3% White alone (41.9% White alone or in combination), 8.7% Asian alone, 0.4% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 8.7% some other race, and 6.9% multiracial. 14.9% of residents were Hispanic or Latino. 34.8% had a bachelor's degree or higher. 23.9% spoke a language other than English at home, the most common of which was Spanish (10.8%). 15.0% of the populations foreign born, roughly half of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens. 3.7% of the population are veterans. The median household income was $52,889 and 22.8% of the population lived in poverty. 49.5% of the population drove alone to work, while 23.2% used public transit, 8.2% carpooled, 7.9% walked, and 7.0% worked from home. The average commute is 31 minutes. After the 1950 census, when a record high of 2,071,605 was recorded, the city's population began a long decline. The population dropped to a low of 1,488,710 residents in 2006 before beginning to rise again. Between 2006 and 2017, Philadelphia added 92,153 residents. In 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the racial composition of the city was 41.3% Black (non-Hispanic), 34.9% White (non-Hispanic), 14.1% Hispanic or Latino, 7.1% Asian, 0.4% Native American, 0.05% Pacific Islander, and 2.8% multiracial. Immigration and cultural diversity In addition to the city's economic growth, the city's population has been fueled by foreign immigration. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, the city's foreign-born population increased by 69% between 2000 and 2016 to constitute nearly 20% of Philadelphia's workforce, and it doubled between 1990 and 2017 to constitute 13.8% of the city's total population, with the top five countries of origin being China by a significant margin followed by the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, India, and Vietnam. Irish, Italian, German, Polish, English, Russian, Ukrainian, and French ancestries constitute the largest European ethnic groups in the city. Philadelphia has the second-largest Irish and Italian populations in the United States after New York City. South Philadelphia remains one of the largest Italian neighborhoods in the country and is home to the Italian Market. The Pennsport neighborhood and Gray's Ferry section of South Philadelphia, home to many Mummer clubs, are well known as Irish neighborhoods. The Kensington, Port Richmond, and Fishtown neighborhoods have historically been heavily Irish and Polish. Port Richmond is a center for the Polish-American community in Philadelphia, and it remains a common destination for Polish immigrants. Northeast Philadelphia, although known for its Irish and Irish-American population, is home to a Jewish and Russian population. Mount Airy in Northwest Philadelphia also contains a Jewish community. Nearby Chestnut Hill is historically known as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant community. Philadelphia's Black American population is the fourth-largest in the country after New York City, Chicago, and Houston. West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia are largely African-American neighborhoods, but many are leaving those areas in favor of the Northeast and Southwest sections of Philadelphia. A higher proportion of African-American Muslims reside in Philadelphia than most other major U.S. cities. West Philadelphia and Southwest Philadelphia are home to various Afro-Caribbean and African immigrant communities. The Puerto Rican population in Philadelphia is the second-largest on the U.S. mainland after New York City, and the second-fastest growing after Orlando. Eastern North Philadelphia, particularly Fairhill and surrounding areas to the north and east, has one of the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans outside Puerto Rico, with many large swaths of blocks being close to 100% Puerto Rican. Puerto Rican and Dominican populations reside in North Philadelphia and the Northeast, and Mexican and Central American populations exist in South Philadelphia. South American migrants were being transported by bus from Texas to Philadelphia beginning in 2022. Philadelphia's Asian American population includes those of Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, South Koreans, Filipinos, Cambodians, and Indonesians. Over 35,000 Chinese Americans lived in the city in 2015, including a Fuzhounese population. Center City hosts a Chinatown that is served by Chinatown bus lines with service to/from Chinatown, Manhattan. A Korean community initially settled in the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Olney; however, the primary Koreatown has subsequently shifted further north, straddling the city's border with adjacent Cheltenham in Montgomery County and Cherry Hill in South Jersey. South Philadelphia is home to Vietnamese-Americans in Little Saigon and Cambodian-Americans in Cambodia Town, as well as Thai-American, Indonesian-American, and Chinese-American communities. Philadelphia's Gay village near Washington Square is home to a concentration of gay and lesbian-friendly businesses, restaurants, and bars. Religion In a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 68% of the population of the city identified themselves as Christian. Approximately 41% of Christians in the city and area professed attendance at a variety of churches that could be considered Protestant, while 26% professed Catholic beliefs. The Protestant Christian community in Philadelphia is dominated by mainline Protestant denominations including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church in the United States, Presbyterian Church (USA) and American Baptist Churches USA. One of the most prominent mainline Protestant jurisdictions is the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was established in Philadelphia. Historically, the city has strong connections to the Quakers, Unitarian Universalism, and the Ethical Culture movement, all of which continue to be represented in the city. The Quaker Friends General Conference is based in Philadelphia. Evangelical Protestants making up less than 15% of the population were also prevalent. Evangelical Protestant bodies included the Anglican Church in North America, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Presbyterian Church in America, and National Baptist Convention of America. The Catholic community is primarily served by the Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy of the United States of America and Canada, though some independent Catholic churches exist throughout Philadelphia and its suburbs. The Latin Church-based jurisdiction is headquartered in the city, and its see is the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. The Ukrainian Catholic jurisdiction is headquartered in Philadelphia, and is seated at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Less than 1% of Philadelphia's Christians were Mormons. The remainder of the Christian demographic is spread among smaller Protestant denominations and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox among others. The Diocese of Eastern Pennsylvania (Orthodox Church in America) and Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Ecumenical Patriarchate) divide the Eastern Orthodox in Philadelphia. The Russian Orthodox St. Andrew's Cathedral is in the city. The same study says that other religions collectively compose about 8% of the population, including Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Philadelphia has the fifth-largest Muslim population among U.S. cities. The remaining 24% claimed no religious affiliation. The Philadelphia metropolitan area's Jewish population was estimated at 206,000 in 2001, which was the sixth-largest in the U.S. at that time. Jewish traders were operating in southeastern Pennsylvania long before William Penn. Jews in Philadelphia took a prominent part in the War of Independence. Although the majority of the early Jewish residents were of Portuguese or Spanish descent, some among them had emigrated from Germany and Poland. About the beginning of the 19th century, a number of Jews from the latter countries, finding the services of the Congregation Mickvé Israel unfamiliar to them, resolved to form a new congregation which would use the ritual to which they had been accustomed. African diasporic religions are practiced in some Latino and Hispanic and Caribbean communities in North and West Philadelphia. Languages As of 2010, 79.12% (1,112,441) of Philadelphia residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 9.72% (136,688) spoke Spanish, 1.64% (23,075) Chinese, 0.89% (12,499) Vietnamese, 0.77% (10,885) Russian, 0.66% (9,240) French, 0.61% (8,639) other Asian languages, 0.58% (8,217) African languages, 0.56% (7,933) Cambodian (Mon-Khmer), and Italian was spoken as a main language by 0.55% (7,773) of the population over the age of five. In total, 20.88% (293,544) of Philadelphia's population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English. Poverty Philadelphia is home to many food poverty programs, of which two of the largest are Philabundance which claims to feed 90000 people per week. and Share Food Program which claims to feed 1 million people per month. Economy Philadelphia's close geographical and transportation connections to other large metropolitan economies along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States have been cited as offering a significant competitive advantage for business creation and entrepreneurship. The city is the center of economic activity in both Pennsylvania and the four-state Delaware Valley metropolitan region. Five Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in the city. As of 2021, the Philadelphia metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of US$479 billion, an increase from the $445 billion calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for 2017, representing the ninth-largest U.S. metropolitan economy. Philadelphia's economic sectors include financial services, health care, biotechnology, information technology, trade and transportation, manufacturing, oil refining, food processing, and tourism. Metropolitan Philadelphia is one of the top five American venture capital hubs, credited to its proximity to New York City's financial and tech and biotechnology ecosystems. Financial activities account for the largest economic sector of the metropolitan area, which is one of the largest health education and research centers in the United States. The city's two largest employers are the federal and city governments. Philadelphia's largest private employer is the University of Pennsylvania, followed by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Finance and corporations The Philadelphia Stock Exchange, acquired by Nasdaq in 2007, is a global leader in options trading. The city is home to the headquarters of Comcast, the nation's largest multinational telecommunications corporation; insurance conglomerates Cigna, Colonial Penn, and Independence Blue Cross; as well as food services company Aramark, chemical makers FMC Corporation and Rohm and Haas, pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline, Amicus Therapeutics, Spark Therapeutics, apparel retailers Five Below and Urban Outfitters and its subsidiary Anthropologie, automotive parts retailer Pep Boys, and stainless steel producer Carpenter Technology Corporation. Other corporation headquarters in the city include RiteAid, Crown Holdings, and Brandywine Realty Trust. The headquarters of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems and its main rotorcraft factory are in the Philadelphia suburb of Ridley Park; The Vanguard Group, and the U.S. headquarters of Siemens Healthineers are headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb. Healthcare conglomerate AmerisourceBergen is located in suburban Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Across the Delaware River in adjacent Camden County, New Jersey, Campbell Soup Company and Subaru USA are both headquartered in the city of Camden, and TD Bank (USA) is headquartered in nearby suburban Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Tech and biotech Philadelphia is a hub for information technology and biotechnology. Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are attracting new life sciences ventures. As of 2024, the Delaware Valley ranks as one of the Big Five U.S. venture capital hubs, enabled by its proximity to both the entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems of New York City and to the federal regulatory environment of Washington, D.C. Tourism Philadelphia's history attracts many tourists, with the Independence National Historical Park, which includes the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and other historic sites, received over 5 million visitors in 2016. The city welcomed 42 million domestic tourists in 2016 who spent $6.8 billion, generating an estimated $11 billion in total economic impact in the city and surrounding four counties of Pennsylvania. The annual Naked Bike Ride attracts participants from around the United States and internationally to Philadelphia. Trade and transportation Philadelphia International Airport, a major Transatlantic gateway and transcontinental hub, has undergone a $900 million infrastructural expansion to increase passenger capacity and augment passenger experience, and the airport continues an ongoing capital expenditure program to upgrade facilities and add further amenities. The Port of Philadelphia, having experienced the highest percentage growth by tonnage loaded in 2017 among major U.S. seaports, has doubled its shipping capacity to accommodate super-sized post-Panamax shipping vessels since 2018. Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is the third-busiest Amtrak rail hub, following Penn Station in Manhattan and Union Station in Washington, D.C., transporting over 4 million inter-city rail passengers annually. Education Primary and secondary education Education in Philadelphia is provided by many private and public institutions. The School District of Philadelphia is the local school district, operating public schools, in all of the city. The Philadelphia School District is the eighth-largest school district in the nation with 142,266 students in 218 traditional public schools and 86 charter schools as of 2014. The city's K-12 enrollment in district–run schools dropped from 156,211 students in 2010 to 130,104 students in 2015. During the same time period, the enrollment in charter schools increased from 33,995 students in 2010 to 62,358 students in 2015. This consistent drop in enrollment led the city to close 24 of its public schools in 2013. During the 2014 school year, the city spent an average of $12,570 per pupil, below the average among comparable urban school districts. Graduation rates among district-run schools, meanwhile, steadily increased in the ten years from 2005. In 2005, Philadelphia had a district graduation rate of 52%. This number increased to 65% in 2014, still below the national and state averages. Scores on the state's standardized test, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) trended upward from 2005 to 2011 but subsequently decreased. In 2005, the district-run schools scored an average of 37.4% on math and 35.5% on reading. The city's schools reached their peak scores in 2011 with 59.0% on math and 52.3% on reading. In 2014, the scores dropped significantly to 45.2% on math and 42.0% on reading. Of the city's public high schools, including charter schools, only four performed above the national average on the SAT (1497 out of 2400) in 2014: Masterman, Central, Girard Academic Music Program, and MaST Community Charter School. All other district-run schools were below average. Higher education Medical and research facilities of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Philadelphia has the third-largest student concentration on the East Coast, with more than 120,000 college and university students enrolled within the city and nearly 300,000 in the metropolitan area. More than 80 colleges, universities, trade, and specialty schools are in the Philadelphia region. One of the founding members of the Association of American Universities is in the city, the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution with claims to be the First university in the United States. The city's largest university by student enrollment is Temple University, followed by Drexel University. The city's nationally ranked research universities comprise the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, and Thomas Jefferson University. Philadelphia is also home to five schools of medicine: Drexel University College of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine, and Thomas Jefferson University's Sidney Kimmel Medical College. Hospitals, universities, and higher education research institutions in Philadelphia's four congressional districts received more than $252 million in National Institutes of Health grants in 2015. Other institutions of higher learning within the city's borders include: Culture Philadelphia is home to many national historical sites that relate to the founding of the United States. Independence National Historical Park is the center of these historical landmarks and one of the country's 22 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the Liberty Bell is housed, are among the city's most popular attractions. Other national historic sites include the homes of Edgar Allan Poe and Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and early government buildings, including the First and the Second Bank of the United States, Fort Mifflin, and the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church. Philadelphia alone has 67 National Historic Landmarks, the third most of any city in the country. Philadelphia's major science museums include the Franklin Institute, which contains the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Mütter Museum, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. History museums include the National Constitution Center, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Philadelphia History Museum, the National Museum of American Jewish History, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania in the Masonic Temple, and the Eastern State Penitentiary. Philadelphia is home to the United States's first zoo and hospital, as well as Fairmount Park, one of America's oldest and largest urban parks, founded in 1855. The city is home to important archival repositories, including the Library Company of Philadelphia, established in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin at 1314 Locust Street, and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, founded in 1814. The Presbyterian Historical Society is the country's oldest denominational historical society, organized in 1852. Arts The city is home to multiple art museums, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Rodin Museum, which holds the largest collection of work by Auguste Rodin outside France. The city's largest art museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is one of the largest art museums in the world. The long flight of steps to the Art Museum's main entrance became famous after the film Rocky (1976). Annual events include the Philadelphia Film Festival, held annually each October, the 6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade, the nation's longest-running continuously held Thanksgiving Day parade, and the Mummers Parade, the nation's longest continuously held folk parade, which is held every New Year's Day predominantly on Broad Street. Areas such as South Street and the Old City section of the city have a vibrant night life. The Avenue of the Arts in Center City contains many restaurants and theaters, such as the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Academy of Music, home of Opera Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Ballet. The Wilma Theatre and the Philadelphia Theatre Company at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre produce a variety of new plays. Several blocks to the east are the Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephens Episcopal Church; and the Walnut Street Theatre, a National Historic Landmark stated to be the oldest and most subscribed-to theatre in the English-speaking world, founded in 1809. In May 2019, the Walnut Street Theatre announced a major expansion to begin in 2020. New Freedom Theatre, Pennsylvania's oldest African-American theatre, is located on North Broad Street. Philadelphia has more public art than any other American city. In 1872, the Association for Public Art, formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association, was created as the first private association in the United States dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. In 1959, lobbying by the Artists Equity Association helped create the Percent for Art ordinance, the first for a U.S. city. The program, which has funded more than 200 pieces of public art, is administered by the Philadelphia Office of Arts and Culture, the city's art agency. The city has more murals than any other American city, due to the 1984 creation of the Department of Recreation's Mural Arts Program, which seeks to beautify neighborhoods and provide an outlet for graffiti artists. The program has funded more than 2,800 murals by professional, staff and volunteer artists and educated more than 20,000 youth in underserved neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia. The city is home to a number of art organizations, including the regional art advocacy nonprofit Philadelphia Tri-State Artists Equity, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, one of the country's oldest artists' clubs, and The Plastic Club, started by women excluded from the Sketch Club. Many Old City art galleries stay open late on the First Friday event of each month. Music The Philadelphia Orchestra is generally considered one of the top five orchestras in the United States. The orchestra performs at the Kimmel Center and has a summer concert series at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. Opera Philadelphia performs at the nation's oldest continually operating opera house—the Academy of Music. The Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale has performed its music all over the world. The Philly Pops plays orchestral versions of popular jazz, swing, Broadway, and blues songs at the Kimmel Center and other venues within the mid-Atlantic region. The Curtis Institute of Music is one of the world's premier conservatories and among the most selective institutes of higher education in the nation. Philadelphia has played a prominent role in the music of the United States. The culture of American popular music has been influenced by significant contributions of Philadelphia area musicians and producers, in both the recording and broadcasting industries. In 1952, the teen dance party program called Bandstand premiered on local television, hosted by Bob Horn. The show was renamed American Bandstand in 1957, when it began national syndication on ABC, hosted by Dick Clark and produced in Philadelphia until 1964 when it moved to Los Angeles. Promoters marketed youthful musical artists known as teen idols to appeal to the young audience. Philadelphia-born singers such as Frankie Avalon, James Darren, Eddie Fisher, Fabian Forte, and Bobby Rydell, along with South Philly-raised Chubby Checker, topped the music charts, establishing a clean-cut rock and roll image. Philly soul music of the late 1960s–1970s is a highly produced version of soul music which led to later forms of popular music such as disco and urban contemporary rhythm and blues. On July 13, 1985, John F. Kennedy Stadium was the American venue for the Live Aid concert. The city also hosted the Live 8 concert, which attracted about 700,000 people to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on July 2, 2005. Notable rock and pop musicians from Philadelphia and its suburbs include Bill Haley & His Comets, Nazz, Todd Rundgren, Hall & Oates, the Hooters, Cinderella, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Ween, Schoolly D, Pink, the Roots, Beanie Sigel, State Property, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Meek Mill, Lil Uzi Vert, and others. Cuisine The city is known for its hoagies, stromboli, roast pork sandwich, scrapple, soft pretzels, water ice, Irish potato candy, tastykakes, and the cheesesteak sandwich which was developed by Italian immigrants. The Philadelphia area has many establishments that serve cheesesteaks, including restaurants, taverns, delicatessens and pizza parlors. The originator of the thinly-sliced steak sandwich in the 1930s, initially without cheese, is Pat's King of Steaks, which faces its rival Geno's Steaks, founded in 1966, across the intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue in the Italian Market of South Philadelphia. McGillin's Olde Ale House, opened in 1860 on Drury Street in Center City, is the oldest continuously operated tavern in the city. The City Tavern is a replica of a historic 18th-century building first opened in 1773, demolished in 1854 after a fire, and rebuilt in 1975 on the same site as part of Independence National Historical Park. The tavern offers authentic 18th-century recipes, served in seven period dining rooms, three wine cellar rooms and an outdoor garden. The Reading Terminal Market is a historic food market founded in 1893 in the Reading Terminal building, a designated National Historic Landmark. The enclosed market is one of the oldest and largest markets in the country, hosting over a hundred merchants offering Pennsylvania Dutch specialties, artisan cheese and meat, locally grown groceries, and specialty and ethnic foods. Dialect The traditional Philadelphia accent is considered by some linguists to be the most distinctive accent in North America. The Philadelphia dialect, which is spread throughout the Delaware Valley and South Jersey, is part of a larger Mid-Atlantic American English family, a designation that also includes the Baltimore dialect. Additionally, it shares many similarities with the New York accent. Owing to over a century of linguistic data collected by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania under sociolinguist William Labov, the Philadelphia dialect has been one of the best-studied forms of American English. The accent is especially found within the Irish American and Italian American working-class neighborhoods. Philadelphia also has its own unique collection of neologisms and slang terms. Sports Philadelphia's first professional sports team was baseball's Athletics, organized in 1860. The Athletics were initially an amateur league team that turned professional in 1871, and then became a founding team of the current National League in 1876. The city is one of 13 U.S. cities to have teams in all four major league sports: the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB), the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL), the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Phillies, formed in 1883 as the Quakers and renamed in 1884, are the oldest team continuously playing under the same name in the same city in the history of American professional sports. The Philadelphia metro area is also home to the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer (MLS). The Union began playing their home games in 2010 at PPL Park, a soccer-specific stadium in Chester, Pennsylvania. The stadium's name was changed to Talen Energy Stadium in 2016 and to Subaru Park in 2020. Philadelphia was the second of eight American cities to have won titles in all four major leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA), and also has a title in soccer from the now-defunct North American Soccer League in the 1970s. The city's professional teams and their fans endured 25 years without a championship, from the 76ers 1983 NBA Finals win until the Phillies 2008 World Series win. The lack of championships was sometimes attributed in jest to the Curse of Billy Penn after One Liberty Place became the first building to surpass the height of the William Penn statue on top of City Hall's tower in 1987. After nine years passed without another championship, the Eagles won their first Super Bowl following the 2017 season. In 2004, ESPN placed Philadelphia second on its list of The Fifteen Most Tortured Sports Cities. Fans of the Eagles and Phillies were singled out as the worst fans in the country by GQ magazine in 2011, which used the subtitle of "Meanest Fans in America" to summarize incidents of drunken behavior and a history of booing. Major professional sports teams that originated in Philadelphia but later moved to other cities include the Golden State Warriors basketball team, which played in Philadelphia from 1946 to 1962 and the Oakland Athletics baseball team, which was originally the Philadelphia Athletics and played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954. Philadelphia is home to professional, semi-professional, and elite amateur teams in cricket, rugby league (Philadelphia Fight), and rugby union. Major running events in the city include the Penn Relays (track and field), the Philadelphia Marathon, and the Broad Street Run. The Collegiate Rugby Championship is played every June at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester. Rowing has been popular in Philadelphia since the 18th century. Boathouse Row is a symbol of Philadelphia's rich rowing history, and each Big Five member has its own boathouse. Philadelphia hosts numerous local and collegiate rowing clubs and competitions, including the annual Dad Vail Regatta, which is the largest intercollegiate rowing event in North America with more than 100 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities participating; the annual Stotesbury Cup Regatta, which is billed as the world's oldest and largest rowing event for high school students; and the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta. The regattas are held on the Schuylkill River and organized by the Schuylkill Navy, an association of area rowing clubs that has produced numerous Olympic rowers. The Philadelphia Spinners were a professional ultimate team in Major League Ultimate (MLU) until 2016. The Spinners were one of the original eight teams of the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) that began in 2012. They played at Franklin Field and won the inaugural AUDL championship and the final MLU championship in 2016. The MLU was suspended indefinitely by its investors in December 2016. As of 2018, the Philadelphia Phoenix continue to play in the AUDL. Philadelphia is home to the Philadelphia Big 5, a group of five NCAA Division I college basketball programs. The Big 5 include La Salle, Penn, Saint Joseph's, Temple, and Villanova universities. The sixth NCAA Division I school in Philadelphia is Drexel University. Villanova won the 1985, 2016, and 2018 championship of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. Philadelphia will be one of the eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Law and government Philadelphia County is a legal nullity. All county functions were assumed by the city in 1952. The city has been coterminous with the county since 1854. Philadelphia's 1952 Home Rule Charter was written by the City Charter Commission, which was created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in an act of April 1949, and a city ordinance of June 1949. The existing city council received a proposed draft in February 1951, and the electors approved it in an election held in April 1951. The first elections under the new Home Rule Charter were held in November 1951, and the newly elected officials took office in January 1952. The city uses the strong-mayor version of the mayor–council form of government, which is led by one mayor in whom executive authority is vested. The mayor has the authority to appoint and dismiss members of all boards and commissions without the approval of the city council. Elected at-large, the mayor is limited to two consecutive four-year terms, but can run for the position again after an intervening term. Courts Philadelphia County is coterminous with the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas is the trial court of general jurisdiction for the city, hearing felony-level criminal cases and civil suits above the minimum jurisdictional limit of $10,000. The court has appellate jurisdiction over rulings from the Municipal and Traffic Courts, and some administrative agencies and boards. The trial division has 70 commissioned judges elected by the voters, along with about one thousand other employees. The court has a family division with 25 judges and an orphans' court with three judges. As of 2018, the city's District Attorney is Larry Krasner, a Democrat. The last Republican to hold the office is Ronald D. Castille, who left in 1991 and later served as the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from 2008 to 2014. The Philadelphia Municipal Court handles traffic cases, misdemeanor and felony criminal cases with maximum incarceration of five years, and civil cases involving $12,000 or less ($15,000 in real estate and school tax cases), and all landlord-tenant disputes. The municipal court has 27 judges elected by the voters. Pennsylvania's three appellate courts also have sittings in Philadelphia. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the court of last resort in the state, regularly hears arguments in Philadelphia City Hall. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania also sit in Philadelphia several times a year. Judges for these courts are elected at large. The state Supreme Court and Superior Court have deputy prothonotary offices in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is home to the federal United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, both of which are housed in the James A. Byrne United States Courthouse. Politics The current mayor is Cherelle Parker who won the election in November 2023. Parker's predecessor, Jim Kenney, served two terms from 2016 to January 2024. Parker is a member of the Democratic Party. For over seven decades, since 1952, every Philadelphia mayor has been a Democrat. Philadelphia City Council is the legislative branch which consists of ten council members representing individual districts and seven members elected at-large, all of whom are elected to four-year terms. Democrats are currently the majority and hold 14 seats including nine of the ten districts and five at-large seats. Republicans hold one seat: the Northeast-based Tenth District. The Working Families Party holds two at-large seats making them the Council's minority party. The current council president is Kenyatta Johnson. Philadelphia's political structure consists of a system of wards and divisions. There are 66 wards with 11 to 51 divisions each for a total of 1703 divisions. Each division elects two committee people who are supposed to live within the division boundaries, and committee people select a leader for their ward. Democrats and Republicans elect their own committee people every four years. The committee person's role is to serve as a point of contact between voters and party officials and help get out the vote. Most wards are closed which means the ward leader makes sole endorsement decisions; open wards allow committee people to weigh in on these decisions. There are groups such as Open Wards Philadelphia Archived April 2, 2024, at the Wayback Machine and individuals who are working to elect ward leaders who promote an open ward system. Philadelphia had historically been a bastion of the Republican Party from the American Civil War until the mid-1930s. In 1856, the first Republican National Convention was held at Musical Fund Hall at 808 Locust Street in Philadelphia. Democratic registrations increased after the Great Depression; however, the city was not carried by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in his landslide victory of 1932, as Pennsylvania was one of only six states won by Republican Herbert Hoover. Voter turnout surged from 600,000 in 1932 to nearly 900,000 in 1936 and Roosevelt carried Philadelphia with over 60% of the vote. Philadelphia has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1936. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama drew 83% of the city's vote. Obama's win was even greater in 2012, capturing 85% of the vote. In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won 82% of the vote. As a result of the previously declining population in the city and state, Philadelphia has only three congressional districts of the 18 districts in Pennsylvania, based on the 2010 census apportionment: the 2nd district, represented by Brendan Boyle; the 3rd, represented by Dwight Evans; and the 5th, represented by Mary Gay Scanlon. All three representatives are Democrats, though Republicans still have some support in the city, primarily in the Northeast. Sam Katz ran competitive mayoral races as the Republican nominee in 1999 and 2003, losing to Democrat John Street both times. Pennsylvania's longest-serving Senator, Arlen Specter, was an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania who opened his first law practice in Philadelphia. Specter served as a Republican from 1981 and as a Democrat from 2009, losing that party's primary in 2010 and leaving office in January 2011. He was assistant counsel on the Warren Commission in 1964 and the city's district attorney from 1966 to 1974. Philadelphia has hosted various national conventions, including in 1848 (Whig), 1856 (Republican), 1872 (Republican), 1900 (Republican), 1936 (Democratic), 1940 (Republican), 1948 (Republican), 1948 (Progressive), 2000 (Republican), and 2016 (Democratic). Philadelphia has been home to one vice president, George M. Dallas, and one general of the American Civil War, George B. McClellan, who won his party's nomination for president but lost in the general election to Abraham Lincoln in 1864. In May 2019, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chose Philadelphia to be his 2020 U.S. presidential campaign headquarters. Environmental policy "Green Cities, Clean Water" is an environmental policy initiative based in Philadelphia that has shown promising results in mitigating the effects of climate change. The researchers on the policy have stated that despite such promising plans of green infrastructure building, "the city is forecasted to grow warmer, wetter, and more urbanized over the century, runoff and local temperatures will increase on average throughout the city". Even though landcover predictive models on the effects of the policy initiative have indicated that green infrastructure could be useful at decreasing the amount of runoff in the city over time, the city government would have to expand its current plans and "consider the cobenefit of climate change adaptation when planning new projects" in limiting the scope of city-wide temperature increase. Public safety Police and law enforcement In a 2015 report by Pew Charitable Trusts, the police districts with the highest rates of violent crime were Frankford (15th district) and Kensington (24th district) in the Near Northeast, and districts to the North (22nd, 25th, and 35th districts), West (19th district) and Southwest (12th district) of Center City. Each of those seven districts recorded more than a thousand violent crimes in 2014. The lowest rates of violent crime occurred in Center City, South Philadelphia, the Far Northeast, and Roxborough districts, the latter of which includes Manayunk. Philadelphia had 500, 503 according to some sources, murders in 1990, a rate of 31.5 per 100,000. An average of about 400 murders occurred each year for most of the 1990s. The murder count dropped in 2002 to 288, then rose to 406 by 2006, before dropping slightly to 392 in 2007. A few years later, Philadelphia began to see a rapid decline in homicides and violent crime. In 2013, the city had 246 murders, which is a decrease of nearly 40% since 2006. In 2014, 248 homicides were committed. The homicide rate rose to 280 in 2015, then fell slightly to 277 in 2016, before rising again to 317 in 2017. Homicides increased dramatically in the late 2010s/early 2020s, reaching 499 homicides in 2020 and surpassing the 1990 "record" in 2021, with 501st murder on November 27 and 510 by the end of the month. Phillie ended the year with 562 murders, an all-time record. It dropped in 2022 to 514, and significantly further again in 2023, to 410. In 2006, Philadelphia's homicide rate of 27.7 per 100,000 people was the highest of the country's 10 most populous cities. In 2012, Philadelphia had the fourth-highest homicide rate among the country's most populous cities. The rate dropped to 16 homicides per 100,000 residents by 2014 placing Philadelphia as the sixth-highest city in the country. The number of shootings in the city has declined significantly since the early years of the 21st century. Shooting incidents peaked at 1,857 in 2006 before declining nearly 44 percent to 1,047 shootings in 2014. Major crimes have decreased gradually since a peak in 2006 when 85,498 major crimes were reported. The number of reported major crimes fell 11 percent in three years to 68,815 occurrences in 2014. Violent crimes, which include homicide, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery, decreased 14 percent in three years to 15,771 occurrences in 2014. In 2014, Philadelphia enacted an ordinance decriminalizing the possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana or eight grams of hashish; the ordinance gave police officers the discretion to treat possession of these amounts as a civil infraction punishable by a $25 ticket, rather than a crime. At the time, Philadelphia was at the largest city in the nation to decriminalize the possession of marijuana. From 2013 to 2018, marijuana arrests in the city dropped by more than 85%. The purchase or sale of marijuana remains a criminal offense in Philadelphia. Firefighting The Philadelphia Fire Department provides fire protection and emergency medical services (EMS). The department's official mission is to protect public safety by quick and professional response to emergencies and the promotion of sound emergency prevention measures. This mandate encompasses all traditional firefighting functions, including fire suppression, with 60 engine companies and 30 ladder companies as well as specialty and support units deployed throughout the city; specialized firefighting units for Philadelphia International Airport and the Port of Philadelphia; investigations conducted by the fire marshal's office to determine the origins of fires and develop preventive strategies; prevention programs to educate the public; and support services including research and planning, management of the fire communications center within the city's 911 system, and operation of the Philadelphia Fire Academy. Media Newspapers Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers are The Philadelphia Inquirer, first published in 1829—the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the country—and the Philadelphia Daily News, first published in 1925. The Daily News has been published as an edition of the Inquirer since 2009. Recent owners of the Inquirer and Daily News have included Knight Ridder, The McClatchy Company, and Philadelphia Media Holdings, with the latter organization declaring bankruptcy in 2010. After two years of financial struggle, the newspapers were sold to Interstate General Media in 2012. The two newspapers had a combined daily circulation of 306,831 and a Sunday circulation of 477,313 in 2013, the 18th-largest circulation in the country, and their collective website, Philly.com, was ranked 13th in popularity among online U.S. newspapers by Alexa Internet the same year. Smaller publications include the Philadelphia Tribune published five days each week for the African-American community; Philadelphia magazine, a monthly regional magazine; Philadelphia Weekly, a weekly alternative newspaper; Philadelphia Gay News, a weekly newspaper for the LGBT community; The Jewish Exponent, a weekly newspaper for the Jewish community; Al Día, a weekly newspaper for the Latino community; and Philadelphia Metro, a free daily newspaper. Student-run newspapers include the University of Pennsylvania's The Daily Pennsylvanian, Temple University's The Temple News, and Drexel University's The Triangle. Radio The first experimental radio license was issued in Philadelphia in August 1912 to St. Joseph's College. The first commercial AM radio stations began broadcasting in 1922: first WIP, then owned by Gimbels department store, followed by WFIL, then owned by Strawbridge & Clothier department store, and WOO, a defunct station owned by Wanamaker's department store, as well as WCAU and WDAS. As of 2018, the FCC lists 28 FM and 11 AM stations for Philadelphia. As of December 2017, the ten highest-rated stations in Philadelphia were adult contemporary WBEB-FM (101.1), sports talk WIP-FM (94.1), classic rock WMGK-FM (102.9), urban adult contemporary WDAS-FM (105.3), classic hits WOGL-FM (98.1), album-oriented rock WMMR-FM (93.3), country music WXTU-FM (92.5), all-news KYW-AM (1060), talk radio WHYY-FM (90.9), and urban adult contemporary WRNB-FM (100.3). Philadelphia is served by three non-commercial public radio stations: WHYY-FM (NPR), WRTI-FM (classical and jazz), and WXPN-FM (adult alternative music). Television In the 1930s, the experimental station W3XE, owned by Philco, became the first television station in Philadelphia. The station became NBC's first affiliate in 1939, and later became KYW-TV (currently a CBS affiliate). WCAU-TV, WFIL-TV, and WHYY-TV were all founded by the 1960s. In 1952, WFIL (renamed WPVI) premiered the television show Bandstand, which later became the nationally broadcast American Bandstand hosted by Dick Clark. Each commercial network has an affiliate in Philadelphia: KYW-TV 3 (CBS), WPVI-TV 6 (ABC), WCAU 10 (NBC), WPHL-TV 17 (The CW with MyNetworkTV on DT2), WFPA-CD 28 (UniMás), WTXF-TV 29 (Fox), WPSG 57 (Independent), WWSI 62 (Telemundo), and WUVP-DT 65 (Univision). The region is served also by public broadcasting stations WPPT-TV (Philadelphia), WHYY-TV (Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia), WLVT-TV (Lehigh Valley), and NJTV (New Jersey). Philadelphia has owned-and-operated stations for five major English-language broadcast networks: NBC – WCAU-TV, CBS – KYW-TV, ABC – WPVI-TV, Fox – WTXF-TV and The CW – WPHL-TV. Since September 2024, it is the largest television market where at least one of the six English networks are shown at a station not owned by a particular network's associated parent company. The major Spanish-language networks are Univision – WUVP-DT, UniMás – WFPA-CD, and Telemundo – WWSI-TV. As of 2018, the city is the nation's fourth-largest consumer in media market, as ranked by the Nielsen Media Research firm, with nearly 2.9 million TV households. Infrastructure Transportation Philadelphia is served by SEPTA, which operates buses, trains, rapid transit (as both subways and elevated trains), trolleys, and trackless trolleys (electric buses) throughout Philadelphia, the four Pennsylvania suburban counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery, in addition to service to Mercer County, New Jersey (Trenton) and New Castle County, Delaware (Wilmington and Newark, Delaware). The city's subway system consists of two routes: the subway section of the Market–Frankford Line running east–west under Market Street which opened in 1905 to the west and 1908 to the east of City Hall, and the Broad Street Line running north–south beneath Broad Street which opened in stages from 1928 to 1938. Beginning in the 1980s, large sections of the SEPTA Regional Rail service to the far suburbs of Philadelphia were discontinued due to a lack of funding for equipment and infrastructure maintenance. Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is a major railroad station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor with 4.4 million passengers in 2017 making it the third-busiest station in the country after New York City's Pennsylvania Station and Washington's Union Station. 30th Street Station offers access to Amtrak, SEPTA, and NJ Transit lines. Over 12 million SEPTA and NJ Transit rail commuters use the station each year, and more than 100,000 people on an average weekday. The PATCO Speedline provides rapid transit service to Camden, Collingswood, Westmont, Haddonfield, Woodcrest (Cherry Hill), Ashland (Voorhees), and Lindenwold, New Jersey, from stations on Locust Street between 16th and 15th, 13th and 12th, and 10th and 9th streets, and on Market Street at 8th Street. Airports Two airports serve Philadelphia: the Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is 7 mi (11 km) south-southwest of Center City on the boundary with Delaware County, providing scheduled domestic and international air service, while Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) is a general aviation relief airport in Northeast Philadelphia serving general and corporate aviation. Philadelphia International Airport is among the busiest airports in the world measured by traffic movements (i.e., takeoffs and landings). More than 30 million passengers pass through the airport annually on 25 airlines, including all major domestic carriers. The airport has nearly 500 daily departures to more than 120 destinations worldwide. SEPTA's Airport Regional Rail Line provides direct service between Center City railroad stations and Philadelphia International Airport. Roads William Penn planned Philadelphia with numbered streets traversing north and south, and streets named for trees, such as Chestnut, Walnut, and Mulberry (since renamed Arch Street), traversing east and west. The two main streets were named Broad Street (the north–south artery, since designated Pennsylvania Route 611) and High Street (the east–west artery, since renamed Market Street) converging at Centre Square which later became the site of City Hall. Interstate 95 (the Delaware Expressway) traverses the southern and eastern edges of the city along the Delaware River as the main north–south controlled-access highway, connecting Philadelphia with Newark, New Jersey and New York City to the north and with Baltimore and Washington, D.C. southward. The city is also served by Interstate 76 (the Schuylkill Expressway), which runs along the Schuylkill River, intersecting the Pennsylvania Turnpike at King of Prussia and providing access to Harrisburg and points west. Interstate 676 (the Vine Street Expressway) links I-95 and I-76 through Center City by running below street level between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Vine Street. Entrance and exit ramps for the Benjamin Franklin Bridge are near the eastern end of the expressway, just west of the I-95 interchange. The Roosevelt Boulevard and Expressway (U.S. 1) connect Northeast Philadelphia with Center City via I-76 through Fairmount Park. Woodhaven Road (Route 63) and Cottman Avenue (Route 73) serve the neighborhoods of Northeast Philadelphia, running between I-95 and the Roosevelt Boulevard. The Fort Washington Expressway (Route 309) extends north from the city's northern border, serving Montgomery County and Bucks County. U.S. Route 30 (Lancaster Avenue) extends westward from West Philadelphia to Lancaster. Interstate 476 (locally referred to as the Blue Route) traverses Delaware County, bypassing the city to the west and serving the city's western suburbs, and provides a direct route to Allentown and points north, including the Poconos. Interstate 276, the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Delaware River extension, is a bypass and commuter route to the north of the city and a link to the New Jersey Turnpike and New York City. The Delaware River Port Authority operates four bridges in the Philadelphia area across the Delaware River to New Jersey: the Walt Whitman Bridge (I-76), the Benjamin Franklin Bridge (I-676 and U.S. 30), the Betsy Ross Bridge (New Jersey Route 90), and the Commodore Barry Bridge (U.S. 322 in Delaware County, south of the city). The Burlington County Bridge Commission maintains two bridges across the Delaware River: the Tacony–Palmyra Bridge which connects PA Route 73 in the Tacony section of Northeast Philadelphia with New Jersey Route 73 in Palmyra, Burlington County, and the Burlington–Bristol Bridge which connects NJ Route 413/U.S. Route 130 in Burlington, New Jersey with PA Route 413/U.S. 13 in Bristol Township, north of Philadelphia. Bus service The Greyhound terminal is at 1001 Filbert Street (at 10th Street) in Center City, southeast of the Pennsylvania Convention Center and south of Chinatown. Several other bus operators provide service at the Greyhound terminal including Fullington Trailways, Martz Trailways, Peter Pan Bus Lines, and NJ Transit buses. Other intercity bus services include Megabus with stops at 30th Street Station and the visitor center for Independence Hall, BoltBus (operated by Greyhound) at 30th Street Station, OurBus at various stops in the city. Rail Since the early days of rail transportation in the United States, Philadelphia has served as a hub for several major rail companies, particularly the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad first operated Broad Street Station, then 30th Street Station and Suburban Station, and the Reading Railroad operated Reading Terminal, now part of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The two companies also operated competing commuter rail systems in the area. The two systems now operate as a single system under the control of SEPTA, the regional transit authority. Additionally, the PATCO Speedline subway system and NJ Transit's Atlantic City Line operate successor services to southern New Jersey. In 1911, Philadelphia had nearly 4,000 electric trolleys running on 86 lines. In 2005, SEPTA reintroduced trolley service to the Girard Avenue Line, Route 15. SEPTA operates six subway-surface trolleys that run on street-level tracks in West Philadelphia and subway tunnels in Center City, along with two surface trolleys in adjacent suburbs. Philadelphia is a regional hub of the federally-owned Amtrak system, with 30th Street Station being a primary stop on the Washington-Boston Northeast Corridor and the Keystone Corridor to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. 30th Street also serves as a major station for services via the Pennsylvania Railroad's former Pennsylvania Main Line to Chicago. As of 2018, 30th Street is Amtrak's third-busiest station in the country, after New York City and Washington. Utilities Water purity and availability In 1815, Philadelphia began sourcing its water via the Fairmount Water Works on the Schuylkill River, the nation's first major urban water supply system. In 1909, the Water Works was decommissioned as the city transitioned to modern sand filtration methods. Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) provides drinking water, wastewater collection, and stormwater services for Philadelphia, as well as surrounding counties. PWD draws about 57 percent of its drinking water from the Delaware River and the balance from the Schuylkill River. The city has two filtration plants on the Schuylkill River and one on the Delaware River. The three plants can treat up to 546 million gallons of water per day, while the total storage capacity of the combined plant and distribution system exceeds one billion gallons. The wastewater system consists of three water pollution control plants, 21 pumping stations, and about 3,657 miles (5,885 km) of sewers. Electricity Exelon subsidiary PECO Energy Company, founded as the Brush Electric Light Company of Philadelphia in 1881 and renamed Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) in 1902, provides electricity to about 1.6 million customers and more than 500,000 natural gas customers in the southeastern Pennsylvania area including the city of Philadelphia and most of its suburbs. PECO is the largest electric and natural gas utility in the state with 472 power substations and nearly 23,000 miles (37,000 km) of electric transmission and distribution lines, along with 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of natural gas transmission, distribution & service lines. Natural gas Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), overseen by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, is the nation's largest municipally-owned natural gas utility. PGW serves over 500,000 homes and businesses in the Philadelphia area. Founded in 1836, the company came under city ownership in 1987 and has been providing the majority of gas distributed within city limits. In 2014, the City Council refused to conduct hearings on a $1.86 billion sale of PGW, part of a two-year effort that was proposed by the mayor. The refusal led to the prospective buyer terminating its offer. Telecommunications Southeastern Pennsylvania was assigned the 215 area code in 1947 when the North American Numbering Plan of the Bell System went into effect. The geographic area covered by the code was split nearly in half in 1994 when area code 610 was created, with the city and its northern suburbs retaining 215. Overlay area code 267 was added to the 215 service area in 1997, and 484 was added to the 610 area in 1999. A plan in 2001 to introduce a third overlay code to both service areas, area code 445 to 215 and area code 835 to 610, was delayed and later rescinded. Area code 445 was implemented as an overlay for area codes 215 and 267 starting on February 3, 2018. Notable people Sister cities Philadelphia also has three partnership cities or regions: Philadelphia has eight official sister cities as designated by the Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI) of Philadelphia: Philadelphia has dedicated landmarks to its sister cities. The Sister Cities Park, a site of 0.5 acres (2,400 sq yd) at 18th and Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Logan Square, was dedicated in June 1976. The park was built to commemorate Philadelphia's first two sister city relationships, with Tel Aviv and Florence. Toruń Triangle, honoring the sister city relationship with Toruń, Poland, was constructed in 1976, west of the United Way building at 18th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Sister Cities Park was redesigned and reopened in 2012, featuring an interactive fountain honoring Philadelphia's sister and partnership cities, a café and visitor's center, children's play area, outdoor garden, boat pond, and a pavilion built to environmentally friendly standards. The Chinatown Gate, erected in 1984 and crafted by artisans from Tianjin, stands astride 10th Street, on the north side of its intersection with Arch Street, as a symbol of the sister city relationship. The CDI of Philadelphia has participated in the U.S. Department of State's "Partners for Peace" project with Mosul, Iraq, and in accepting visiting delegations from dozens of other countries. See also List of Pennsylvania state historical markers in Philadelphia County Metropolitan areas in the Americas National Register of Historic Places listings in Philadelphia USS Philadelphia Notes References Further reading Holli, Melvin G., and Jones, Peter d'A., eds. Biographical Dictionary of American Mayors, 1820-1980 (Greenwood Press, 1981) short scholarly biographies each of the city's mayors 1820 to 1980. online; see index at p. 410 for list. External links Official website of the City of Philadelphia government Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia – historical encyclopedia Historic Philadelphia, over 2 million photographs dating back to the late 1800s Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network, historical maps and atlases Daly, John; Weinberg, Allen (October 1966). Genealogy of Philadelphia County Subdivisions, 1687–1960 (Second ed.). Philadelphia Dept. of Records. philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News Official website of Discover Philadelphia Official website of Pennsylvania Convention Center "10 Towns that Changed America", a WTTW segment on Philadelphia (at 7:23–12:00 in 56-minute video)

List_of_ONS_built-up_areas_in_England_by_population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ONS_built-up_areas_in_England_by_population

This list of built-up areas for England was compiled by the Office for National Statistics after the 2021 UK Census. Built-up area boundaries are defined and named by the ONS. Classifications Major The ONS classified all built-up areas with a population of at least 200,000 as major. Most are cities with some exceptional towns; Luton, Northampton and Reading) The West Midlands county has three cities over 200,000; Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton. Large The ONS classified all built-up areas between 199,999 and 75,000 as large-sized, most include large towns or smaller cities. Medium The ONS classified all built-up areas between 75,000 and 20,000 as medium-sized, most are moderate towns with some exceptional cities or villages. 49,700 to 74,999 Hereford, Canterbury, Lancaster and Durham have city status, all others are towns and Rochester formerly had city status. 30,000 to 49,699 "Citypopulation.de" does not record areas with a population lower than Thundersley and South Benfleet. Winchester, Lichfield and Chichester have city status between 30,000 and 49,700. 20,000 to 29,999 Truro officially has city status. See also List of cities in the United Kingdom City status in the United Kingdom, differing ways which cities have become cities. List of towns in England, England's towns in alphabet order and the differing ways which towns have become towns. List of towns and cities in England by historical population, the development of urban centres in England and before England through time. Settlements in ceremonial counties of England by population, places with 5,000 or more residents by county and the highest populated built-up area in each county. List of English districts by population, population of each local government district in England. List of urban areas in the United Kingdom sets out the population of each 2011 built-up area in the UK. List of built-up areas in Wales by population, Welsh equivalent. References == Notes ==

Province_of_A_Coru%C3%B1a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_A_Coru%C3%B1a

The province of A Coruña (Galician: provincia da Coruña [pɾoˈβinθjɐ ðɐ koˈɾuɲɐ]; Spanish: provincia de La Coruña [la koˈɾuɲa] ; historical English: Corunna) is the northwesternmost province of Spain, and one of the four provinces which constitute the autonomous community of Galicia. This province is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and north, Pontevedra Province to the south and Lugo Province to the east. History The history of this province starts at the end of the Middle Ages during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. During those years this province was far smaller than today. This is because in the 1833 territorial division of Spain the entire Province of Betanzos together with half of the Mondoñedo were amalgamated into one single province with its capital city in A Coruña. Since 1833, the province has always been the one with the largest population and largest coast. Until the second half of the 20th century, this province was both the religious and cultural centre of the entire region. The University of Santiago de Compostela was the only university in North-western Spain until the arrival of democracy after the death of General Francisco Franco. Population Since 1877 Main sights The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the destination of the Way of St. James, a major historical pilgrimage route since the Middle Ages which still gathers thousands of pilgrims each year from all over the world. Parks Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park is the only national park in Galicia. It is shared between the Provinces of A Coruña and Pontevedra. The "Fragas" of the River Eume Natural Park extends itself throughout the Eume and Ferrol regions of Ferrolterra. The Dunes of Corrubedo Natural Park (Parque Natural das Dunas de Corrubedo e lagoas de Carregal e Vixán) is a beach park at the very end of the Barbanza Peninsula. Transport Airports and airfields Aeroporto da Lavacolla in Santiago de Compostela Aeroporto de Alvedro in the City of A Coruña Heliporto da Graña in the Naval Base of A Graña (Ferrolterra) Heliporto de Narón in Naron (Ferrolterra) Railway Spanish National Railway Network Linking every major city: Ferrol, Betanzos, A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela Spanish Narrow-Gauge Railways Linking the City of Ferrol with different towns of Ferrol and Ortegal. This line is also known as Ferrol-Irun (Basque Country) Spanish High Speed Railway Network (AVE) Linking most major cities of the province with Lisbon and Madrid is under construction. Economy Ports A Coruña – Major Commercial Port – Rías Altas Malpica – Fishing Port – Costa da Morte Camariñas – Fishing Port – Costa da Morte Fisterra – Fishing Port – Costa da Morte Ferrol – Major Commercial Ports (also: Military) – Rias altas Cariño – Fishing Port – Rias altas Espasante – Fishing Port – Rias altas Cedeira – Fishing Port – Rias altas Sport Deportivo de La Coruña Spanish Primera Federación team from the City of A Coruña. Racing Ferrol Spanish Segunda División team from the City of Ferrol. SD Compostela Spanish Segunda Federación team from the City of Santiago de Compostela. Atlético Arteixo Spanish Tercera Federación team from the Municipality of Arteixo. Bergantiños FC Spanish Tercera Federación team from the Municipality of Carballo. SD Negreira Spanish Tercera Division team from the Municipality of Negreira. Autos Lobelle de Santiago FS Spanish División de Honor of Futsal team from the City of Santiago de Compostela. See also List of municipalities in A Coruña == References ==

Santiago_de_Compostela_Cathedral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_Cathedral

The Santiago de Compostela Arch cathedral Basilica (Spanish and Galician: Catedral Basílica de Santiago de Compostela) is part of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and is an integral component of the Santiago de Compostela World Heritage Site in Galicia, Spain. The cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Great, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. It is also among the remaining churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle, the other ones being St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, St Thomas Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India and Basilica of St. John in Izmir, Turkey. The archcathedral basilica has historically been a place of pilgrimage on the Way of St James since the Early Middle Ages and marks the traditional end of the pilgrimage route. The building is a Romanesque structure, with later Gothic and Baroque additions. History According to the legend, the apostle Saint James the Great brought Christianity to the Iberian Peninsula. However, in Acts 12 it is written that James was killed on order of Herod in Jerusalem. According to legend, the tomb in Santiago was rediscovered in AD 814 by Pelagius the Hermit, after he witnessed strange lights in the night sky above the Libredon forest. Bishop Theodomirus of Iria recognized this as a miracle and informed king Alfonso II of Asturias and Galicia (791–842). The king ordered the construction of a chapel on the site. Legend has it that the king was the first pilgrim to this shrine. This was followed by the first church in AD 829 and then in AD 899 by a pre-Romanesque church, ordered by king Alfonso III of León, which caused the gradual development of this major place of pilgrimage. In 997 the early church was reduced to ashes by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir (938–1002), army commander of the caliph of Córdoba. St James' tomb and relics were left undisturbed. The gates and the bells, carried by local Christian captives to Córdoba, were added to the Aljama Mosque. When Córdoba was taken by king Ferdinand III of Castile in 1236, these same gates and bells were then transported by Muslim captives to Toledo, to be inserted in the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo. Construction of the present cathedral began in 1075 under the reign of Alfonso VI of Castile (1040–1109) and the patronage of bishop Diego Peláez. It was built according to the same plan as the monastic brick church of Saint Sernin in Toulouse, probably the greatest Romanesque edifice in France. It was built mostly in granite. Construction was halted several times and, according to the Liber Sancti Iacobi, the last stone was laid in 1122. But by then, the construction of the cathedral was certainly not finished. The cathedral was consecrated in 1211 in the presence of king Alfonso IX of Leon. According to the Codex Calixtinus the architects were "Bernard the elder, a wonderful master", his assistants Robertus Galperinus and, later possibly, "Esteban, master of the cathedral works". In the last stage "Bernard, the younger" was finishing the building, while Galperinus was in charge of the coordination. He also constructed a monumental fountain in front of the north portal in 1122. The city became an episcopal see in 1075 and the church its cathedral. Due to its growing importance as a place of pilgrimage, it was raised to an archiepiscopal see by Pope Callixtus II in 1120. A university was added in 1495. It has been proposed that the peculiar lantern towers of several churches in the Duero valley (Zamora, Plasencia, Toro, Évora) were inspired by the Romanesque dome of Santiago, substituted by a Gothic one in the 15th century. The cathedral was expanded and embellished with additions in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Exterior of the cathedral Each of the façades along with their adjoining squares constitute a large urban square. The Baroque façade of the Praza do Obradoiro square was completed by Fernando de Casas Novoa in 1740. Also in baroque style is the Acibecharía façade by Ferro Caaveiro and Fernández Sarela, later modified by Ventura Rodríguez. The Pratarías façade, built by the Master Esteban in 1103, and most importantly the Pórtico da Gloria, an early work of Romanesque sculpture, were completed by Master Mateo in 1188. Façade of the Obradoiro The Obradoiro square in front of the façade alludes to the workshop (Galician: obradoiro) of stonemasons who worked on the square during the construction of the cathedral. In order to protect the Pórtico da Gloria from deterioration caused by weather, this façade and towers have had several reforms since the 16th century. In the 18th century it was decided to build the current Baroque façade, designed by Fernando de Casas Novoa. It has large glazed windows that illuminate the ancient Romanesque façade, located between the towers of the Bells and of the Ratchet. In the middle of the central body is St. James and one level below his two disciples Athanasius and Theodore, all dressed as pilgrims. In between, the urn (representing the found tomb) and the star (representing the lights Hermit Pelagius saw) between angels and clouds. The tower on the right depicts Mary Salome, mother of St. James, and the tower on the left depicts his father Zebedee. The balustrade on the left side depicts St. Susanna and St. John and the one on the right depicts St. Barbara and James the Less. The Maximilian Staircase allows entrance to the façade. The stair was made in the 17th century by Ginés Martínez and it is of Renaissance style inspired by Giacomo Vignola of Palazzo Farnese. It is diamond-shaped with two ramps that surround the entrance to the old 12th century Romanesque crypt of the Master Mateo, popularly called the "Old Cathedral". According to Manuel Gago Mariño, the sculptures at the base of the Maximilian Staircase of the cathedral, built by Maximilian of Austria are also related to the Battle of Clavijo. Between the existing plane of the façade of the Obradoiro and the old Romanesque portal (Pórtico da Gloria) there is a covered narthex. This façade has become a symbol of the cathedral and the city of Santiago de Compostela. As such, it is the engraving on the back of the Spanish euro coins of 1, 2 and 5 cents. South façade or das Pratarías The façade of the Silverware (Pratarías in Galician) is the southern façade of the transept of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela; it is the only Romanesque façade that is preserved in the cathedral. It was built between 1103 and 1117 and elements from other parts of the cathedral have been added in subsequent years. The square is bound by the cathedral and cloister on two sides. Next to the cathedral is the Casa do Cabido. It has two entrance doors in degradation with archivolts and historical tympanums. The archivolts are attached over eleven columns, three are of white marble (middle and corners) and the rest of granite. In the center are the figures of twelve prophets and the Apostles on the sideline. On the tympanums is a large frieze separated from the upper body by a strip supported by grotesque corbels; on this floor are two windows decorated with Romanesque archivolts. In the central frieze is Christ, with various characters and scenes. On the right six figures belong to the Stone choir of Master Mateo that were placed in the late 19th century. The original provision of the iconographic elements was invalidated since in the 18th century numerous images were introduced recovered from the dismantled Acibecharía façade. A central medallion shows the Eternal Father (or Transfiguration) with open hands and on the top surface there are four angels with trumpets heralding the Final Judgment. In the tympanum of the left door is Christ tempted by a group of demons. To the right is a half-dressed woman with a skull in her hands, which could be Eve or the adulterous woman. This figure is not praying on her knees but is sitting on two lions. The jambs are Saint Andrew and Moses. In the left abutment, the Biblical King David seated on his throne with his legs crossed, translucent through the thin fabric of his clothes, and playing what appears to be a rebec, personifies the triumph over evil and is an outstanding Romanesque work, sculpted by Master Esteban. The creation of Adam and Christ's blessing is also shown. Many of these figures come from the Romanesque façade of the north or do Paraíso (current façade of the Acibecharía) and were placed on this façade in the 18th century. In the tympanum of the right door there are several scenes from the Passion of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi. In one of the jambs is the inscription commemorating the laying of the stone: Registration follows the Roman calendar, according to the computation of the Spanish era, corresponding to July 11, 1078. An image, unidentified, of a fox eating a rabbit and, against this, a badly dressed woman with an animal in her lap. Supported on the wall of the tower Berenguela appear other images representing the creation of Eve, Christ on a throne, and the Binding of Isaac. North façade or da Acibecharía The façade "da Acibecharía" (Galician name derived from the jet gemstone) is in the Praza da Inmaculada or Acibecharía, draining the last section of urban roads: French, Primitive, Northern and English through the old gate Franxígena or Paradise door. The Romanesque portal was built in 1122 by Bernardo, treasurer of the temple. This portal was demolished after suffering a fire in 1758; some sculptural pieces that were saved were placed on the façade das Pratarías. The new façade was designed in Baroque style by Lucas Ferro Caaveiro and finished by Domingo Lois Monteagudo and Clemente Fernández Sarela in the neoclassical style in 1769, although it retained some traces of the baroque. At the top of the façade is an 18th-century statue of St. James, with two kings in prayer at his feet: Alfonso III of Asturias and Ordoño II of León. In the centre is the statue of Faith. East façade or da Quintana The façade of the cathedral that overlooks the Plaza de la Quintana has two gates: the Porta Real (royal gate) and the Porta Santa (holy gate). The construction of the Porta Real, baroque, was begun under the direction of José de Vega y Verdugo and by José de la Peña de Toro in 1666, and was completed by Domingo de Andrade in 1700, who built some of the columns that span two floors of windows, a balustrade with large pinnacles, and an aedicula with an equestrian statue of Saint James (now disappeared), well adorned with decorative fruit clusters and large-scale military trophies. The kings of Spain entered the cathedral through this door, hence its name, and the royal coat of arms on its lintel. The holy door (Porta Santa) or Door of Forgiveness (Porta do Perdón) is the closest to the steps. It is usually closed with a fence and opened only in a Jacobean holy year (years when Saint James' Day, 25 July, falls on a Sunday). It was one of the seven lesser gates and was dedicated to St. Pelagius (for whom is named a convent just opposite). On this door niches contain the image of James, with his disciples Athanasius and Theodore at his side. On the bottom and sides of the door were placed twenty-four figures of prophets and apostles (including St. James) coming from the old stone choir of Master Mateo. Inside this door through a small courtyard is the true Holy Door, which enters into the ambulatory of the apse of the church. Bell Towers The early towers in the main façade of the cathedral were Romanesque (current façade of the Obradoiro). They are called the Torre das Campás, which is situated on the side of the Epistle (right) and Torre da Carraca, to the side of the Gospel (left). The two have a height of between 75 and 80 metres. The first part of the tower was built in the 12th century, but in the 15th century several modifications were made and King Louis XI of France donated in 1483 the two largest of the thirteen bells. Due to a tilt that was detected in its structure between the 16th and 17th centuries, the towers had to be reinforced with buttresses, between 1667 and 1670. The towers housing the bells were made by José de la Peña de Toro (1614–1676) in a baroque style, and completed by Domingo de Andrade. The architecture of the towers has a great effect in perspective with its vertical lines and the sequencing of its floors. North Tower or da Carraca It is located to the left of the façade del Obradoiro, and was built – like its partner – on the opposite side of an earlier tower of the Romanesque period. It was designed by Fernando de Casas Novoa in 1738, imitating the bell towers by Peña de Toro and Domingo de Andrade in the 17th century: baroque decorations adorned all kinds of ornamentation that provided a unifying architecture across the façade. Clock Tower, Torre da Trindade or Berenguela The Clock Tower, also called Torre da Trindade or, Berenguela, is at the intersection of the Pratarías square and the Quintana Square. Traditionally, construction was thought to begin in 1316, at the request of Archbishop Rodrigo del Padrón as a defence tower. After his death his successor, Archbishop Bérenger de Landore, continued work on it, though these dates are questioned by some authors. When he became main master of the cathedral, Domingo de Andrade continued with its construction and between 1676 and 1680 raised it two floors higher; the use of various structures achieved a harmonious and ornamental design, with a pyramid-shaped crown and a lantern as a final element, with four light bulbs permanently lit. It rises to 75 m (246 ft). In 1833, a clock was placed on each side of the tower by Andrés Antelo, commissioned by the Archbishop Rafael de Vélez. As part of its mechanism it has two bells, one, at the hour, called Berenguela, and a smaller one marking the quarter hours. These two were cast in 1729 by Güemes Sampedro. Berenguela has a diameter of 255 cm (100 in) and a height of 215 cm (85 in), weighing approximately 9,600 kg (21,200 lb), and the smaller weighs 1,839 kg (4,054 lb) with a diameter of 147 cm (58 in) and a height of 150 cm (59 in). Both original bells cracked, forcing their replacement. The current replicas were cast in Asten (Netherlands) by the Eijsbouts house in 1989 and were placed in the cathedral in February 1990. During a Jacobean Holy Year, pilgrims may enter the cathedral through the holy door (Porta Santa) to gain a plenary indulgence. During a holy year, the lantern of the Berenguela Tower is lit throughout the year. otherwise it stays unlit. The light acts as a lighthouse to guide pilgrims to the cathedral during the holy years. Interior The cathedral is 97 m (318 ft) long and 22 m (72 ft) high. It preserves its original, barrel-vaulted, cruciform, Romanesque interior. It consists of a nave, two lateral aisles, a wide transept, and a choir with radiating chapels. Compared with many other important churches, the interior of this cathedral gives a first impression of austerity until one enters further and sees the magnificent organ and the exuberance of the choir. It is the largest Romanesque church in Spain and one of the largest in Europe. Portico of Glory The Portico of Glory ("Pórtico da Gloria" in Galician) of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is a Romanesque portico by Master Mateo and his workshop commissioned by King Ferdinand II of León. To commemorate its completion in 1188, the date was carved on a stone and set in the cathedral, and the lintels were placed on the portico. Finalising the complete three-piece set took until 1211, when the temple was consecrated in the presence of King Alfonso IX of León. The portico has three round arches that correspond to the three naves of the church, supported by thick piers with pilasters. The central arch, twice as wide as the other two, has a tympanum and is divided by a central column—a mullion—containing a depiction of Saint James. Vertically, the lower part is formed by the bases of the columns, decorated with fantastic animals, the middle portion consists of columns adorned with statues of the Apostles, and the upper part supports the base of the arches crowning the three doors. The sculpture is intended to serve as an iconographic representation of various symbols derived from the Book of Revelation and books of the Old Testament. Tympanum The arrangement of the tympanum is based on the description of Christ that John the Evangelist makes in Revelation (Chapter 1 v 1 to 18). In the centre, the Pantocrator is shown, with the image of Christ in Majesty, displaying in his hands and feet the wounds of crucifixion. Surrounding Christ is the tetramorph with the figures of the four Evangelists with their attributes: left, top St. John and the eagle and below St. Luke with the ox; on the right above, St. Matthew on the hood of the tax collector and below St. Mark and the lion. On both sides of the evangelists, behind Mark and Luke, there are four angels on each side with the instruments of the Passion of Christ. Some are, without touching them directly, the cross and crown of thorns (left) and lance and four nails (right), another the column in which he was whipped and the jar through which Pontius Pilate proclaimed his innocence. Above the heads of these angels, two large groups of souls of the blessed, forty in all. In the archivolt of the central tympanum are seated the elders of the Apocalypse, each holding a musical instrument, as if preparing a concert in honor of God. Mullion In the mullion, the figure of Saint James is seated with a pilgrim's staff, as a patron of the basilica. St. James appears with a scroll which contains written Misit me Dominus (the Lord sent me). The column just above his head with a capital which represents the temptations of Christ. On three of its sides, facing the inside of the temple, two kneeling angels pray. At the foot of the saint there is another capital with the figures of the Holy Trinity. Under the Apostle there is a representation of the tree of Jesse, the name given to the family tree of Jesus Christ from Jesse, father of King David; this is the first time that this subject is represented in religious iconography in the Iberian Peninsula. The column rests on a base where there is a figure with beard to his chest (perhaps an image of Noah) and two lions. At the foot of the central column at the top inside, looking towards the main altar of the cathedral, there is the kneeling figure of the Master Mateo himself, holding a sign on which is written Architectus. This image is popularly known as Santo dos Croques from the ancient tradition of students hitting their heads against the figure for wisdom, a tradition that was adopted later by pilgrims, although steps are being taken to limit access, to stem deterioration from which the work has suffered. Jambs In the columns of the central door and two side doors, the apostles are represented, as well as prophets and other figures with their iconographic attributes. All are topped with its own capital which represents different animals and human heads with leaf motifs. The names of all the figures are on the books or scrolls held in their hands. The four pillars of the portico are based on strong foundations which represent various groups of animals and human heads with beards. For some historians, these figures are images of demons and symbolize the weight of glory (the portico in this case) crushing sin. Other sources give an apocalyptic interpretation, with wars, famine and death (represented by the beasts) with situations that can only be saved by human intelligence (the heads of older men). Side doors The arch of the right door represents the Last Judgment. The double archivolt is divided into two equal parts by two heads. Some authors identify these heads with the figures of archangel Michael and Christ. For others, they are Christ-Judge and an angel or may indicate God the Father and God the Son. To the right of these heads, Hell is represented with figures of monsters (demons) that drag and torture the souls of the damned. On the left is Heaven with the elect, with figures of angels with children symbolizing the saved souls. The arch of the left door depicts scenes from the Old Testament, with the righteous awaiting the arrival of the Savior. In the center of the first archivolt is God the Creator who blesses the pilgrim and holds the Book of Eternal Truth; to his right are Adam (naked), Abraham (with the index raised), and Jacob. With them are two figures that could be Noah (new father of humanity saved through the Flood) and Esau or Isaac and Judah. To the left of God are Eve, Moses, Aaron, King David and Solomon. In the second archivolt, the top, ten small figures represent the twelve tribes of Israel. The nave The barrel-vaulted nave and the groin-vaulted aisles consist of eleven bays, while the wide transept consists of six bays. Every clustered pier is flanked by semi-columns, three of which carry the cross vaults of the side aisles and the truss of the arched vaults, while the fourth reaches to the spring of the vault. Lit galleries run, at a remarkable height, above the side aisles around the church. The choir is covered by three bays and surrounded with an ambulatory and five radiating chapels. The vault of the apse is pierced by round windows, forming a clerestory. The choir displays a surprising exuberance in this Romanesque setting. An enormous baldachin, with a sumptuous decorated statue of Saint James from the 13th century, rises above the main altar. The pilgrims can kiss the saint's mantle via a narrow passage behind the altar. In the choir aisle the lattice work and the vault of the Mondragon chapel (1521) stand out. The radiating chapels constitute a museum of paintings, retables, reliquaries and sculptures, accumulated throughout the centuries. In the Chapel of the Reliquary (Galician: Capela do Relicario) is a gold crucifix, dated 874, containing an alleged piece of the True Cross. Crypt The crypt, below the main altar, shows the substructure of the 9th-century church. This was the final destination of the pilgrims. The crypt houses the relics of Saint James and two of his disciples: Saint Theodorus and Saint Athanasius. The silver reliquary (by José Losada, 1886) was put in the crypt at the end of the 19th century, after authentication of the relics by Pope Leo XIII in 1884. Throughout the course of time, the burial place of the saint had been almost forgotten. Because of regular Dutch and English incursions, the relics had been transferred in 1589 from their place under the main altar to a safer place. They were rediscovered in January 1879. Botafumeiro A dome above the crossing contains the pulley mechanism to swing the "Botafumeiro", which is a famous thurible found in this church. It was created by the goldsmith José Losada in 1851. The Santiago de Compostela Botafumeiro is the largest censer in the world, weighing 80 kg (180 lb) and measuring 1.60 m (5.2 ft) in height. It is normally on exhibition in the library of the cathedral, but during certain important religious holidays it is attached to the pulley mechanism, filled with 40 kg (88 lb) of charcoal and incense. In the Jubilee Years (whenever St James's Day falls on a Sunday) the Botafumeiro is also used in all the Pilgrims' Masses. Eight red-robed tiraboleiros pull the ropes and bring it into a swinging motion almost to the roof of the transept, reaching speeds of 80 km/h (50 mph) and dispensing thick clouds of incense. Other burials Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao, at the Panteón de Galegos Ilustres ("Pantheon of Illustrious Galicians"), Bonaval Fructuosus of Braga Rosalía de Castro Fernando Pérez de Traba Ferdinand II of León Alfonso IX of León Pedro Fernández de Castro Gaspar de Ávalos de la Cueva Old images See also Asturian architecture Catholic Church in Spain Santiago de Compostela 12 Treasures of Spain List of Christian pilgrimage sites References Bibliography Álvarez Martínez, Rosario (2002). Music Iconography of Romanesque Sculpture in the Light of Sculptors' Work Procedures: The Jaca Cathedral, Las Platerías in Santiago de Compostela, and San Isidoro de León. Vol. 27. pp. 13–45. ISSN 1522-7464. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bravo Lozano, Millán (1999). Camino de Santiago Inolvidable. León: Everest. ISBN 84-241-3905-4. Carro Otero, Xosé (1997). Santiago de Compostela. publisher Everest. ISBN 84-241-3625-X. Chamorro Lamas, Manuel; González, Victoriano; Regal, Bernardo (1997). Rutas románicas en Galicia/1. Ediciones Encuentro. ISBN 84-7490-411-0. Fraguas Fraguas, Antonio (2004). Romerías y santuarios de Galicia. publisher Galaxia. p. 20. ISBN 978-84-8288-704-3. Fuertes Domínguez, Gregorio (1969). Guía de Santiago, sus monumentos, su arte. Depósito Legal C. 325–1969. El Eco Franciscano. García Iglesias, José Manuel (1993). A catedral de Santiago: A Idade Moderna (in Galician). Xuntanxa. ISBN 8486614694. Garrido Torres, Carlos (2000). Las Guías visuales de España: Galicia. Depósito legal: B 18469. El País. Gómez Moreno, María Elena (1947). Mil Joyas del Arte Español, Piezas selectas, Monumentos magistrales: Tomo primero Antigüedad y Edad Media. Barcelona: Instituto Gallach. Navascués Palacio, Pedro; Sarthou Carreres, Carlos (1997). Catedrales de España. Edición especial para el Banco Bilbao Vizcaya. Madrid: Espasa Calpe. ISBN 84-239-7645-9. OCLC 249825366. Otero Pedrayo, Ramón (1965). Guía de Galicia (4ª ed.). publisher Galaxia. pp. 351ff. Portela Silva, E. (2003). Historia de la ciudad de Santiago de Compostela. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. ISBN 8497501373. Sanmartín, Juan R. (1984). "O Botafumeiro: Parametric pumping in the Middle Ages". American Journal of Physics. 52 (10): 937–945. Bibcode:1984AmJPh..52..937S. doi:10.1119/1.13798. Vaqueiro, Vítor (1998). Guía da Galiza máxica, mítica e lendaria (in Galician). Galaxia. ISBN 8482882058. Vázquez Varela, J. M.; Yzquierdo Perrín, R.; García Iglesias, J. M.; Castro, A. (1996). 100 obras mestras da arte galega (in Galician). Nigra Arte. ISBN 84-87709-50-8. Villa-Amil y Castro, José (1866). Descripción histórico-artístico-arqueológica de la catedral de Santiago. Impr. de Soto Freire. Turner, Jane (1996). Grove Dictionary of Art. Macmillan Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-19-517068-7. External links Official website Reconstruction of the swinging motion of the Botafumeiro Archived 2011-05-23 at the Wayback Machine Photographs of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain Pictures of Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela Archived 2014-10-16 at the Wayback Machine HyperSculpture – Pórtico de la Gloria Archived 2015-02-11 at the Wayback Machine The Art of medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Santiago de Compostela Cathedral (pp. 175–183)

Sword_of_the_Valiant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_the_Valiant

Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (often shortened to Sword of the Valiant) is a 1984 dramatic fantasy film directed by Stephen Weeks and starring Miles O'Keeffe, Trevor Howard, Lila Kedrova, Cyrielle Clair, Leigh Lawson, Peter Cushing, and Sean Connery. The film is loosely based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written in the late 14th century, but the narrative differs substantially. It was the second time Weeks had adapted the traditional tale into a film. His first effort was Gawain and the Green Knight (1973). Plot In a castle's great hall during Yuletide, King Arthur halts a feast as he feels ashamed of how lax he and his knights have become during times of peace, questioning the bravery of all knights present. Suddenly, an axe-wielding knight in green armour arrives at the castle, challenging the knights to a game - he challenges them to decapitate him in one swing of his ax, with the caveat that he can return the blow. None of the knights volunteer, leading the king to shame them for their lack of courage, and accept the challenge himself. Finally, Gawain, a young squire, accepts the challenge in lieu of the king, and is swiftly knighted. Gawain beheads the knight, but the body of the decapitated knight picks up his head and returns it to his neck. Gawain kneels for the knight to strike him, but the Green Knight refuses due to his youth. Promising to return in one year to claim his side of the bargain, the Green Knight gives Gawain a chance to solve a riddle to save his life, which consists of four lines: Where life is emptiness, gladness. Where life is darkness, fire. Where life is golden, sorrow. Where life is lost, wisdom. With King Arthur's blessing, Gawain leaves with Humphrey, a squire, in search of the answer to the Green Knight's riddle. Morgan le Fay instructs Gawain to blow a horn near the seashore, and to go to the lost city of Lyonesse. Upon blowing the horn, a knight in black armor reveals himself to be the guardian of Lyonesse, and challenges Gawain to a duel. Despite the guardian knight's dishonorable conduct in the duel, Gawain wins, and the guardian, dying, asks to be brought home to Lyonesse. Gawain rides to Lyonesse with the guardian, and Humphrey gets separated from Gawain. Upon entering Lyonesse, the guardian knight, on his deathbed, accuses Gawain of murdering him. Pursued by the city guard, Gawain escapes with the help of Linet, a beautiful maiden who gives him her ring, which makes him invisible. Gawain falls in love with Linet, and attempts to escape the city with her, but he manages to leave the city while she is captured. While held by the guards, Linet quickly gives her ring to Gawain. Abruptly appearing in an empty field, he is told by the Green Knight that the game he accepted as a challenge has rules, rules of which have been broken by meeting Linet at the wrong time, and taking her ring. Encountering a group of monks, Gawain asks Vosper, a friar and former thief, for help with the green knight's riddle; Vosper tells Gawain to see the sage at the rock of wisdom. Gawain agrees to follow the rules of the game, and is transported to Lyonesse by the sage, only to find the city decrepit, the denizens old and covered in cobwebs, frozen in time. Gawain carries the frozen Linet to a small house outside of the city, and revives her and restores her youth using her ring. Gawain encounters Humphrey, but while away from the house, Linet is kidnapped by the lustful prince Oswald and the army of his father, the warmongering Baron Fortinbras. Seeking to save Linet, Gawain and Humphrey sneak into the Baron's castle by blending in with a group of prisoners being transported to the castle. Gawain rallies the prisoners to help escape the castle and rescue Linet, but while the rescue mission is underway, Sir Bertilak, a rival of Baron Fortinbras, arrives and threatens Fortinbras with war if certain demands are not met. While the prisoners escape, the rescue fails when a fire breaks out in Linet's prison, leading Gawain to believe she's dead. Mournful, Gawain leaves Humphrey and the escaped prisoners, wandering aimlessly until he stumbles across the castle of Sir Bertilak. Sir Bertilak allows Gawain to rest and recover in his castle. Linet is alive, having been accepted by Bertilak as a tribute from Baron Fortinbras to prevent war. Linet gives Gawain a green sash, and tells him that no harm will befall him while he wears it. The year given by the Green Knight comes to an end, and Gawain, meeting with Humphrey and the former prisoners, goes out seeking the knight. Gawain is attacked by Oswald and Baron Fortinbras's army, and Oswald challenges Gawain to a duel with his champion. After defeating several of Oswald's champions, Oswald himself fights Gawain while the former prisoners fight his army. Gawain wins the duel, and the army retreats. Following his fight with the prince, Gawain is approached by the Green Knight. Gawain has failed to solve the final line of the riddle within the time limit, and must allow the Green Knight one swing at his neck with an ax. The Green Knight strikes Gawain, but he is unharmed due to the sash given to him by Linet. The Green Knight and Sir Gawain duel, and as the Green Knight suffers a mortal wound, he asks Sir Gawain to stop the battle, realizing that he has already lost. Sir Gawain returns to Linet, who tells him that she must return to Lyonesse alone. As he touches her cheek, she transforms into a dove, and flies away. Cast Production The film was copyrighted in 1983 and released the following year. Filming took place in Wales and Ireland, as well as the Château de Pierrefonds and the Palais des Papes in France. The period wardrobe was culled from the collections of stock rooms of the Royal National Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic as well as Berman's and Nathan's, the French Aristide Boyer and the Spanish Cornejo. Director Stephen Weeks hoped to cast Mark Hamill as Gawain, but producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus insisted on Miles O'Keeffe for the role. The film also stars Emma Sutton who would later appear in another film about the Arthurian legends, Merlin of the Crystal Cave. Steptoe and Son actor Wilfrid Brambell made a guest appearance. This was his last performance. The current USA DVD release has received negative reviews as it is mastered in a 4:3 pan and scan picture. However, the Polish release has the film in the original 2.35:1 Cinemascope ratio which has proved more popular. This film is currently unreleased in the United Kingdom. The film received a Blu-ray release in the United States on October 14, 2020, by Scorpion Releasing. Reception Reviewing the film, Time Out London magazine gave it a negative review. It described Sword of the Valiant as "underwhelming" and added "Dreary jousting, production values that make Monty Python and the Holy Grail look lavish, and an excruciating synthesizer score make this a real trial." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 12 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "Overwhelming dislike". See also List of films based on Arthurian legend References External links Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at IMDb Sword of the Valiant at Rotten Tomatoes

Stephen_Weeks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Weeks

Stephen Weeks is a British film director, writer, and producer. He started making films when was 16 and made his featured debut aged 22 with I, Monster. Select filmography I, Monster (1971) Gawain and the Green Knight (1973) Ghost Story (1974) Scars (1976) Sword of the Valiant (1983) The Bengal Lancers! (1984) References External links Stephen Weeks at IMDb

Bowling_at_the_2011_Pan_American_Games_%E2%80%93_Women's_individual

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_at_the_2011_Pan_American_Games_%E2%80%93_Women's_individual

The women's individual competition of the bowling events at the 2011 Pan American Games will take place between the 24 and 27 of October at the Bolearmo Tapatio. The defending Pan American Games champion is Tennelle Milligan of the United States, while the defending Pan American Championship champion is Karen Marcano of Venezuela. Qualification round In the qualification round, the bowlers are ranked according to their performance across twelve bowling games. The top sixteen bowlers advance to the knockout round. Playoffs == References ==

Bowling_at_the_2017_World_Games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_at_the_2017_World_Games

The Bowling competition at the 2017 World Games took place from July 21 to July 24, in Wrocław in Poland, at the Sky Tower. Participating nations Medals table Medalists Laura Buethner of Germany originally won gold in women's singles. but Buethner tested positive for a banned substance. As a result of the positive doping test, Buethner was stripped of the gold medal. Kelly Kulick, who originally won silver, was awarded the gold medal. Clara Guerrero, who originally won bronze, was awarded the silver medal and Daria Kovalova, originally fourth in the final standings, was awarded the bronze medal. References External links Results book Archived 2020-08-15 at the Wayback Machine

Lesticus_purpurascens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesticus_purpurascens

Lesticus purpurascens is a species of ground beetle in the subfamily Pterostichinae. It was described by Straneo in 1959. == References ==

Stefano_Ludovico_Straneo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefano_Ludovico_Straneo

Stefano Ludovico Straneo (also Lodovico) (Turin, 6 June 1902 – Milan, 9 December 1997) was an Italian entomologist, teacher, academic administrator and author. Straneo's primary fields of interest were the beetles (Coleoptera), in particular the family of ground beetles (Carabidae, tribe Pterostichinae). He described 64 new genera and almost 1,200 new species. His collection, Coleoptera: Carabidae and Paussidae, is on display at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano. Straneo's father was a theoretical physicist and an acquaintance of Albert Einstein. He showed an early interest in biology and began collecting insects, eventually focusing on carabid beetles. He published his first paper in 1933 and 238 more until 1995. He received the Italian Golden Medal for Distinguished Educator in Culture And Art in 1972. Works 1984 - Two new species or Pterostichini (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of the Humboldt University of Berlin. 1984 - Un nuovo genere del Camerun della tribù Pterostichini (Coleoptera Carabidae). 1983 - Nuovi pterostichini asiatici (Coleoptera, Carabidae). 1984 - Un nuovo Pterostichus dell'Anatolia occidentale (Col., Carabidae). 1984 - Sul genere Amolopsa Beach (Coleoptera Carabidae). == References ==

Pterostichinae

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterostichinae

Pterostichinae is a subfamily of ground beetles (family Carabidae). It belongs to the advanced harpaline assemblage, and if these are circumscribed sensu lato as a single subfamily, Pterostichinae are downranked to a tribe Pterostichini. However, as the former Pterostichitae supertribe of the Harpalinae as loosely circumscribed does seem to constitute a lineage rather distinct from Harpalus, its core group is here considered to be the present subfamily and the Harpalinae are defined more narrowly. They are usually mid-sized and rather stout ground beetles. Coloration is typically dark and without conspicuous patterns, but often with a strong sheen like polished metal. They are widely distributed and inhabit a wide range of terrestrial habitats. Unlike the more basal ground beetles which only eat small animals, the Pterostichinae include a large proportion of omnivorous or even herbivorous taxa. Systematics This group includes the following tribes and genera: Tribe Chaetodactylini Tschitscherine, 1903 Chaetodactyla Tschitscherine, 1897 Tribe Cnemalobini Germain, 1911 Cnemalobus Guerin-Meneville, 1838 Tribe Cratocerini Lacordaire, 1854 Tribe Microcheilini Jeannel, 1948 Microcheila Brulle, 1834 Tribe Morionini Brulle, 1835 Tribe Pterostichini Bonelli, 1810 (See Pterostichini for ~180 genera) Tribe Zabrini Bonelli, 1810 (See Zabrini for 3 genera) == References ==

Franco_Andrea_Bonelli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Andrea_Bonelli

Franco Andrea Bonelli (10 November 1784 – 18 November 1830) was an Italian ornithologist, entomologist and collector. Life Very little is known about the early life of Bonelli: he was born in Cuneo. He was interested from an early age in the fauna which surrounded him, making collecting trips, preparing specimens and noting his observations. He became a member of the Reale Società Agraria di Torino in 1807 when he presented his first studies relating to the Coleoptera of Piedmont. The high quality of these studies attracted the interest of the naturalists of his time. In April 1810, George Vat was sent to Turin by the French government to reorganize the University of Turin and begin its fusion with the Impériale University founded by Napoleon. Vat was very impressed by Bonelli's knowledge. Vat encouraged him to further his knowledge by coming to follow courses at the Natural History Museum in Paris. Bonelli took this advice so as to obtain a professor's chair in the new university. In September 1810, he arrived in Paris. In 1811, Bonelli was finally named professor of zoology at the University of Turin and keeper of the Natural History Museum of Zoology. During his time at the university, he formed one of the largest ornithological collections in Europe. In 1811, Bonelli wrote a Catalogue of the Birds of Piedmont, in which he described 262 species. In 1815, he discovered the bird Bonelli's warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli), named by Louis Vieillot in 1819. In the same year, he discovered Bonelli's eagle (Hieraaetus fasciatus) which was likewise named by Vieillot in 1822. The successor of Bonelli at the Turin Museum was Carlo Giuseppe Gené. His son was Cesare Bonelli Italian Minister of War from 1878-1880. Achievements Bonelli is most notable for his work on birds and on the beetle family Carabidae. Since he was an early worker on Coleoptera many of his genera later became Families, sub families and tribes. Also, many of his genera survive. Instances are the: Omophroninae; Pseudomorphinae; Brachininae; Trechinae; Harpalinae; Pseudomorphinae; Siagoninae; Pterostichinae and Scaritinae - Subfamilies Dromiidae 1810 Family Pterostichini Tribe Works Catalogue des Oiseaux du Piemont (1811). Observations Entomologique. Première partie. Mém. Acad. Sci. Turin 18: 21–78, Tabula Synoptica (1810). Observations entomologiques. Deuxieme partie. Mém. Acad. Sci. Turin 20: 433-484 (1813) The last two are founding works of entomology, introducing many new taxa. References Sources Achille Casale and Pier Mauro Giachino "Franco Andrea Bonelli (1784-1830), an Entomologist in Turin at the Beginning of the XIX century", in Proceedings of a Symposium (28 August 1996, Florence, Italy). Phylogeny and Classification of Caraboidea. XX International Congress of Entomology, Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali Torino (1998).

Moss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss

Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) sensu stricto. Bryophyta (sensu lato, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Mosses typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have conducting tissues, these are generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in vascular plants. Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores. They are typically 0.2–10 cm (0.1–3.9 in) tall, though some species are much larger. Dawsonia, the tallest moss in the world, can grow to 50 cm (20 in) in height. There are approximately 12,000 species. Mosses are commonly confused with liverworts, hornworts and lichens. Although often described as non-vascular plants, many mosses have advanced vascular systems. Like liverworts and hornworts, the haploid gametophyte generation of mosses is the dominant phase of the life cycle. This contrasts with the pattern in all vascular plants (seed plants and pteridophytes), where the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant. Lichens may superficially resemble mosses, and sometimes have common names that include the word "moss" (e.g., "reindeer moss" or "Iceland moss"), but they are fungal symbioses and not related to mosses.: 3  The main commercial significance of mosses is as the main constituent of peat (mostly the genus Sphagnum), although they are also used for decorative purposes, such as in gardens and in the florist trade. Traditional uses of mosses included as insulation and for the ability to absorb liquids up to 20 times their weight. Moss is a keystone genus and benefits habitat restoration and reforestation. Physical characteristics Description Botanically, mosses are non-vascular plants in the land plant division Bryophyta. They are usually small (a few centimeters tall) herbaceous (non-woody) plants that absorb water and nutrients mainly through their leaves and harvest carbon dioxide and sunlight to create food by photosynthesis. With the exception of the ancient group Takakiopsida, no known mosses form mycorrhiza, but bryophilous fungi is widespread in moss and other bryophytes, where they live as saprotrophs, parasites, pathogens and mutualists, some of them endophytes. Mosses differ from vascular plants in lacking water-bearing xylem tracheids or vessels. As in liverworts and hornworts, the haploid gametophyte generation is the dominant phase of the life cycle. This contrasts with the pattern in all vascular plants (seed plants and pteridophytes), where the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant. Mosses reproduce using spores, not seeds, and have no flowers. Moss gametophytes have stems which may be simple or branched and upright (acrocarp) or prostrate (pleurocarp). The early divergent classes Takakiopsida, Sphagnopsida, Andreaeopsida and Andreaeobryopsida either lack stomata or have pseudostomata that do not form pores. In the remaining classes, stomata have been lost more than 60 times. Their leaves are simple, usually only a single layer of cells with no internal air spaces, often with thicker midribs (nerves). The nerve can run beyond the edge of the leaf tip, termed excurrent. The tip of the leaf blade can be extended as a hair point, made of colourless cells. These appear white against the dark green of the leaves. The edge of the leaf can be smooth or it may have teeth. There may be a distinct type of cell defining the edge of the leaf, distinct in shape and/or colour from the other leaf cells. Moss has threadlike rhizoids that anchor them to their substrate, comparable to root hairs rather than the more substantial root structures of spermatophytes. Mosses do not absorb water or nutrients from their substrate through their rhizoids. They can be distinguished from liverworts (Marchantiophyta or Hepaticae) by their multi-cellular rhizoids. Spore-bearing capsules or sporangia of mosses are borne singly on long, unbranched stems, thereby distinguishing them from the polysporangiophytes, which include all vascular plants. The spore-producing sporophytes (i.e. the diploid multicellular generation) are short-lived and usually capable of photosynthesis, but are dependent on the gametophyte for water supply and most or all of its nutrients. Also, in the majority of mosses, the spore-bearing capsule enlarges and matures after its stalk elongates, while in liverworts the capsule enlarges and matures before its stalk elongates. Other differences are not universal for all mosses and all liverworts, but the presence of a clearly differentiated stem with simple-shaped, non-vascular leaves that are not arranged in three ranks, all point to the plant being a moss. Life cycle Vascular plants have two sets of chromosomes in their vegetative cells and are said to be diploid, i.e. each chromosome has a partner that contains the same, or similar, genetic information. By contrast, mosses and other bryophytes have only a single set of chromosomes and so are haploid (i.e. each chromosome exists in a unique copy within the cell). There is a period in the moss life cycle when they do have a double set of paired chromosomes, but this happens only during the sporophyte stage. The moss life-cycle starts with a haploid spore that germinates to produce a protonema (pl. protonemata), which is either a mass of thread-like filaments or thalloid (flat and thallus-like). Massed moss protonemata typically look like a thin green felt, and may grow on damp soil, tree bark, rocks, concrete, or almost any other reasonably stable surface. This is a transitory stage in the life of a moss, but from the protonema grows the gametophore ("gamete-bearer") that is structurally differentiated into stems and leaves. A single mat of protonemata may develop several gametophore shoots, resulting in a clump of moss. From the tips of the gametophore stems or branches develop the sex organs of the mosses. The female organs are known as archegonia (sing. archegonium) and are protected by a group of modified leaves known as the perichaetum (plural, perichaeta). The archegonia are small flask-shaped clumps of cells with an open neck (venter) down which the male sperm swim. The male organs are known as antheridia (sing. antheridium) and are enclosed by modified leaves called the perigonium (pl. perigonia). The surrounding leaves in some mosses form a splash cup, allowing the sperm contained in the cup to be splashed to neighboring stalks by falling water droplets. Gametophore tip growth is disrupted by fungal chitin. Galotto et al., 2020 applied chitooctaose and found that tips detected and responded to this chitin derivative by changing gene expression. They concluded that this defense response was probably conserved from the most recent common ancestor of bryophytes and tracheophytes. Orr et al., 2020 found that the microtubules of growing tip cells were structurally similar to F-actin and served a similar purpose. Mosses can be either dioicous (compare dioecious in seed plants) or monoicous (compare monoecious). In dioicous mosses, male and female sex organs are borne on different gametophyte plants. In monoicous (also called autoicous) mosses, both are borne on the same plant. In the presence of water, sperm from the antheridia swim to the archegonia and fertilisation occurs, leading to the production of a diploid sporophyte. The sperm of mosses is biflagellate, i.e. they have two flagellae that aid in propulsion. Since the sperm must swim to the archegonium, fertilisation cannot occur without water. Some species (for example Mnium hornum or several species of Polytrichum) keep their antheridia in so called 'splash cups', bowl-like structures on the shoot tips that propel the sperm several decimeters when water droplets hit it, increasing the fertilization distance. After fertilisation, the immature sporophyte pushes its way out of the archegonial venter. It takes several months for the sporophyte to mature. The sporophyte body comprises a long stalk, called a seta, and a capsule capped by a cap called the operculum. The capsule and operculum are in turn sheathed by a haploid calyptra which is the remains of the archegonial venter. The calyptra usually falls off when the capsule is mature. Within the capsule, spore-producing cells undergo meiosis to form haploid spores, upon which the cycle can start again. The mouth of the capsule is usually ringed by a set of teeth called peristome. This may be absent in some mosses. Most mosses rely on the wind to disperse the spores. In the genus Sphagnum the spores are projected about 10–20 cm (4–8 in) off the ground by compressed air contained in the capsules; the spores are accelerated to about 36,000 times the earth's gravitational acceleration g. It has recently been found that microarthropods, such as springtails and mites, can effect moss fertilization and that this process is mediated by moss-emitted scents. Male and female fire moss, for example emit different and complex volatile organic scents. Female plants emit more compounds than male plants. Springtails were found to choose female plants preferentially, and one study found that springtails enhance moss fertilization, suggesting a scent-mediated relationship analogous to the plant-pollinator relationship found in many seed plants. The stinkmoss species Splachnum sphaericum develops insect pollination further by attracting flies to its sporangia with a strong smell of carrion, and providing a strong visual cue in the form of red-coloured swollen collars beneath each spore capsule. Flies attracted to the moss carry its spores to fresh herbivore dung, which is the favoured habitat of the species of this genus. In many mosses, e.g., Ulota phyllantha, green vegetative structures called gemmae are produced on leaves or branches, which can break off and form new plants without the need to go through the cycle of fertilization. This is a means of asexual reproduction, and the genetically identical units can lead to the formation of clonal populations. Dwarf males Moss dwarf males (also known as nannandry or phyllodioicy) originate from wind-dispersed male spores that settle and germinate on the female shoot where their growth is restricted to a few millimeters. In some species, dwarfness is genetically determined, in that all male spores become dwarf. More often, it is environmentally determined in that male spores that land on a female become dwarf, while those that land elsewhere develop into large, female-sized males. In the latter case, dwarf males that are transplanted from females to another substrate develop into large shoots, suggesting that the females emit a substance which inhibits the growth of germinating males and possibly also quickens their onset of sexual maturation. The nature of such a substance is unknown, but the phytohormone auxin may be involved Having the males growing as dwarfs on the female is expected to increase the fertilization efficiency by minimizing the distance between male and female reproductive organs. Accordingly, it has been observed that fertilization frequency is positively associated with the presence of dwarf males in several phyllodioicous species. Dwarf males occur in several unrelated lineages and may be more common than previously thought. For example, it is estimated that between one quarter and half of all dioicous pleurocarps have dwarf males. DNA repair The moss Physcomitrium patens has been used as a model organism to study how plants repair damage to their DNA, especially the repair mechanism known as homologous recombination. If the plant cannot repair DNA damage, e.g., double-strand breaks, in their somatic cells, the cells can lose normal functions or die. If this occurs during meiosis (part of sexual reproduction), they could become infertile. The genome of P. patens has been sequenced, which has allowed several genes involved in DNA repair to be identified. P. patens mutants that are defective in key steps of homologous recombination have been used to work out how the repair mechanism functions in plants. For example, a study of P. patens mutants defective in RpRAD51, a gene that encodes a protein at the core of the recombinational repair reaction, indicated that homologous recombination is essential for repairing DNA double-strand breaks in this plant. Similarly, studies of mutants defective in Ppmre11 or Pprad50 (that encode key proteins of the MRN complex, the principal sensor of DNA double-strand breaks) showed that these genes are necessary for repair of DNA damage as well as for normal growth and development. Classification More recently, mosses have been grouped with the liverworts and hornworts in the division Bryophyta (bryophytes, or Bryophyta sensu lato). The bryophyte division itself contains three (former) divisions: Bryophyta (mosses), Marchantiophyta (liverworts) and Anthocerotophyta (hornworts); it has been proposed that these latter divisions are de-ranked to the classes Bryopsida, Marchantiopsida, and Anthocerotopsida, respectively. The mosses and liverworts are now considered to belong to a clade called Setaphyta. The mosses, (Bryophyta sensu stricto), are divided into eight classes: Six of the eight classes contain only one or two genera each. Polytrichopsida includes 23 genera, and Bryopsida includes the majority of moss diversity with over 95% of moss species belonging to this class. The Sphagnopsida, the peat-mosses, comprise the two living genera Ambuchanania and Sphagnum, as well as fossil taxa. Sphagnum is a diverse, widespread, and economically important one. These large mosses form extensive acidic bogs in peat swamps. The leaves of Sphagnum have large dead cells alternating with living photosynthetic cells. The dead cells help to store water. Aside from this character, the unique branching, thallose (flat and expanded) protonema, and explosively rupturing sporangium place it apart from other mosses. Andreaeopsida and Andreaeobryopsida are distinguished by the biseriate (two rows of cells) rhizoids, multiseriate (many rows of cells) protonema, and sporangium that splits along longitudinal lines. Most mosses have capsules that open at the top. Polytrichopsida have leaves with sets of parallel lamellae, flaps of chloroplast-containing cells that look like the fins on a heat sink. These carry out photosynthesis and may help to conserve moisture by partially enclosing the gas exchange surfaces. The Polytrichopsida differ from other mosses in other details of their development and anatomy too, and can also become larger than most other mosses, with e.g., Polytrichum commune forming cushions up to 40 cm (16 in) high. The tallest land moss, a member of the Polytrichidae is probably Dawsonia superba, a native to New Zealand and other parts of Australasia. Geological history The fossil record of moss is sparse, due to their soft-walled and fragile nature. Unambiguous moss fossils have been recovered from as early as the Permian of Antarctica and Russia, and a case has been made for Carboniferous mosses. It has further been claimed that tube-like fossils from the Silurian are the macerated remains of moss calyptræ. Mosses also appear to evolve 2–3 times slower than ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Recent research shows that ancient moss could explain why the Ordovician ice ages occurred. When the ancestors of today's moss started to spread on land 470 million years ago, they absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere and extracted minerals by secreting organic acids that dissolved the rocks they were growing on. These chemically altered rocks in turn reacted with the atmospheric CO2 and formed new carbonate rocks in the ocean through the weathering of calcium and magnesium ions from silicate rocks. The weathered rocks also released significant amounts of phosphorus and iron which ended up in the oceans, where it caused massive algal blooms, resulting in organic carbon burial, extracting more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Small organisms feeding on the nutrients created large areas without oxygen, which caused a mass extinction of marine species, while the levels of CO2 dropped all over the world, allowing the formation of ice caps on the poles. Ecology Habitat Moss gametophytes are autotrophic and require sunlight to perform photosynthesis. Shade tolerance varies by species, just as it does with higher plants. In most areas, mosses grow chiefly in moist, shaded areas, such as wooded areas and at the edges of streams, but they can grow anywhere in cool, humid, cloudy climates, and some species are adapted to sunny, seasonally dry areas like alpine rocks or stabilized sand dunes. Choice of substrate varies by species as well. Moss species can be classed as growing on: rocks, exposed mineral soil, disturbed soils, acid soil, calcareous soil, cliff seeps and waterfall spray areas, streamsides, shaded humusy soil, downed logs, burnt stumps, tree trunk bases, upper tree trunks, and tree branches or in bogs. Moss species growing on or under trees are often specific about the species of trees they grow on, such as preferring conifers over broadleaf trees, oaks over alders, or vice versa. While mosses often grow on trees as epiphytes, they are never parasitic on the tree. Mosses are also found in cracks between paving stones in damp city streets, and on roofs. Some species adapted to disturbed, sunny areas are well adapted to urban conditions and are commonly found in cities. Examples would be Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus, a garden weed in Vancouver and Seattle areas; Bryum argenteum, the cosmopolitan sidewalk moss, and Ceratodon purpureus, red roof moss, another cosmopolitan species. A few species are wholly aquatic, such as Fontinalis antipyretica, common water moss; and others such as Sphagnum inhabit bogs, marshes and very slow-moving waterways. Such aquatic or semi-aquatic mosses can greatly exceed the normal range of lengths seen in terrestrial mosses. Individual plants 20–30 cm (8–12 in) or more long are common in Sphagnum species for example. But even aquatic species of moss and other bryophytes needs their mature capsules to be exposed to air by seta elongation or seasonal lowering of water level to be able to reproduce. Wherever they occur, mosses require liquid water for at least part of the year to complete fertilisation. Many mosses can survive desiccation, sometimes for months, returning to life within a few hours of rehydration. It is generally believed that in the Northern Hemisphere, the north side of trees and rocks will generally have more luxuriant moss growth on average than other sides. The reason is assumed to be because sunshine on the south side causes a dry environment. The reverse would be true in the Southern Hemisphere. Some naturalists feel that mosses grow on the damper side of trees and rocks. In some cases, such as sunny climates in temperate northern latitudes, this will be the shaded north side of the tree or rock. On steep slopes, it may be the uphill side. For mosses that grow on tree branches, this is generally the upper side of the branch on horizontally growing sections or near the crotch. In cool, humid, cloudy climates, all sides of tree trunks and rocks may be equally moist enough for moss growth. Each species of moss requires certain amounts of moisture and sunlight and thus will grow on certain sections of the same tree or rock. Some mosses grow underwater, or completely waterlogged. Many prefer well-drained locations. There are mosses that preferentially grow on rocks and tree trunks of various chemistries. Relationship with cyanobacteria In boreal forests, some species of moss play an important role in providing nitrogen for the ecosystem due to their relationship with nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria colonize moss and receive shelter in return for providing fixed nitrogen. Moss releases the fixed nitrogen, along with other nutrients, into the soil "upon disturbances like drying-rewetting and fire events", making it available throughout the ecosystem. Cultivation Moss is often considered a weed in grass lawns, but is deliberately encouraged to grow under aesthetic principles exemplified by Japanese gardening. In old temple gardens, moss can carpet a forest scene. Moss is thought to add a sense of calm, age, and stillness to a garden scene. Moss is also used in bonsai to cover the soil and enhance the impression of age. Rules of cultivation are not widely established. Moss collections are quite often begun using samples transplanted from the wild in a water-retaining bag. Some species of moss can be extremely difficult to maintain away from their natural sites with their unique requirements of combinations of light, humidity, substrate chemistry, shelter from wind, etc. Growing moss from spores is even less controlled. Moss spores fall in a constant rain on exposed surfaces; those surfaces which are hospitable to a certain species of moss will typically be colonised by that moss within a few years of exposure to wind and rain. Materials which are porous and moisture retentive, such as brick, wood, and certain coarse concrete mixtures, are hospitable to moss. Surfaces can also be prepared with acidic substances, including buttermilk, yogurt, urine, and gently puréed mixtures of moss samples, water and ericaceous compost. In the cool, humid, cloudy Pacific Northwest, moss is sometimes allowed to grow naturally as a moss lawn, one that needs little or no mowing, fertilizing or watering. In this case, grass is considered to be the weed. Landscapers in the Seattle area sometimes collect boulders and downed logs growing mosses for installation in gardens and landscapes. Woodland gardens in many parts of the world can include a carpet of natural mosses. The Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington State, is famous for its moss garden. The moss garden was created by removing shrubby underbrush and herbaceous groundcovers, thinning trees, and allowing mosses to fill in naturally. Green roofs and walls Mosses are sometimes used in green roofs. Advantages of mosses over higher plants in green roofs include reduced weight loads, increased water absorption, no fertilizer requirements, and high drought tolerance. Since mosses do not have true roots, they require less planting medium than higher plants with extensive root systems. With proper species selection for the local climate, mosses in green roofs require no irrigation once established and are low maintenance. Mosses are also used on green walls. Mossery A passing fad for moss-collecting in the late 19th century led to the establishment of mosseries in many British and American gardens. The mossery is typically constructed out of slatted wood, with a flat roof, open to the north side (maintaining shade). Samples of moss were installed in the cracks between wood slats. The whole mossery would then be regularly moistened to maintain growth. Aquascaping Aquascaping uses many aquatic mosses. They do best at low nutrient, light, and heat levels, and propagate fairly readily. They help maintain a water chemistry suitable for aquarium fish. They grow more slowly than many aquarium plants, and are fairly hardy. Growth inhibition Moss can be a troublesome weed in containerized nursery operations and greenhouses. Vigorous moss growth can inhibit seedling emergence and penetration of water and fertilizer to the plant roots. Moss growth can be inhibited by a number of methods: Decreasing availability of water through drainage. Increasing direct sunlight. Increasing number and resources available for competitive plants like grasses. Increasing the soil pH with the application of lime. Heavy traffic or manually disturbing the moss bed with a rake Application of chemicals such as ferrous sulfate (e.g., in lawns) or bleach (e.g., on solid surfaces). In containerized nursery operations, coarse mineral materials such as sand, gravel, and rock chips are used as a fast-draining top dressing in plant containers to discourage moss growth. The application of products containing ferrous sulfate or ferrous ammonium sulfate will kill moss; these ingredients are typically in commercial moss control products and fertilizers. Sulfur and iron are essential nutrients for some competing plants like grasses. Killing moss will not prevent regrowth unless conditions favorable to their growth are changed. Uses Traditional Preindustrial societies made use of the mosses growing in their areas. Sámi people, North American tribes, and other circumpolar peoples used mosses for bedding. Mosses have also been used as insulation both for dwellings and in clothing. Traditionally, dried moss was used in some Nordic countries and Russia as an insulator between logs in log cabins, and tribes of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada used moss to fill chinks in wooden longhouses. Circumpolar and alpine peoples have used mosses for insulation in boots and mittens. Ötzi the Iceman had moss-packed boots. The capacity of dried mosses to absorb fluids has made their use practical in both medical and culinary uses. North American tribal people used mosses for diapers, wound dressing, and menstrual fluid absorption. Tribes of the Pacific Northwest in the United States and Canada used mosses to clean salmon prior to drying it, and packed wet moss into pit ovens for steaming camas bulbs. Food storage baskets and boiling baskets were also packed with mosses. Recent research investigating the Neanderthals remains recovered from El Sidrón have provided evidence that their diet would have consisted primarily of pine nuts, moss and mushrooms. This is contrasted by evidence from other European locations, which point to a more carnivorous diet. In Finland, peat mosses have been used to make bread during famines. Commercial There is a substantial market in mosses gathered from the wild. The uses for intact moss are principally in the florist trade and for home decoration. Decaying moss in the genus Sphagnum is also the major component of peat, which is "mined" for use as a fuel, as a horticultural soil additive, and in smoking malt in the production of Scotch whisky. Sphagnum moss, generally the species S. cristatum and S. subnitens, is harvested while still growing and is dried out to be used in nurseries and horticulture as a plant growing medium. Some Sphagnum mosses can absorb up to 20 times their own weight in water. In World War I, Sphagnum mosses were used as first-aid dressings on soldiers' wounds, as these mosses said to absorb liquids three times faster than cotton, retain liquids better, better distribute liquids uniformly throughout themselves, and are cooler, softer, and be less irritating. It is also claimed to have antibacterial properties. Native Americans were one of the peoples to use Sphagnum for diapers and menstrual pads, which is still done in Canada. In rural UK, Fontinalis antipyretica was traditionally used to extinguish fires as it could be found in substantial quantities in slow-moving rivers and the moss retained large volumes of water which helped extinguish the flames. This historical use is reflected in its specific Latin/Greek name, the approximate meaning of which is "against fire". In Mexico, moss is used as a Christmas decoration. Physcomitrium patens is increasingly used in biotechnology. Prominent examples are the identification of moss genes with implications for crop improvement or human health and the safe production of complex biopharmaceuticals in the moss bioreactor, developed by Ralf Reski and his co-workers. London installed several structures called "City Trees": moss-filled walls, each of which is claimed to have "the air-cleaning capability of 275 regular trees" by consuming nitrogen oxides and other types of air pollution and producing oxygen. References Further reading Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2003). Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Oregon State University Press. ISBN 0-87071-499-6. External links Information, diagrams and photos Moss grower's handbook (2.3 9MB PDF file) The British Bryological Society Picture Gallery of Mosses World of Mosses – Watercolour paintings of moss by Robert Muma